A Tale of Souls, Swords and
by BackwardsHazard
Summary: Wizard Marshall Zelretch has an idea, this rarely bodes well for anyone. His idea? Dump a post-UBW Shirou Emiya off in the Soul Calibur universe with an Emiya Clan Magic Crest tacked onto his right hand. This is going to be an amusing Tale of Souls, Swords and...! Comedy and a harem. M for safety,
1. Chapter 1

_**This is a proof of concept/WIP, if people like the idea I'll continue this, that said.**_

_**Like a certain 'Angels Blessing' I just have to say this**_

_"Yeah, you read that right. Yeah, you wish you had thought of it first." _

_**Shirou Emiya. In Soul Calibur. **_

_**Shit. just. Got. Real.**_

_**Of course, unlike most author's who would have made this story a gritty story of love lost and bitter tears. I will not be doing anything of the sort. I hope to make this story as comical as possible, mainly because I write comedy, that's what I'm good at. (I do it for teh lulz) So anyone expecting sad moment's of bitterness that rend the heart and soul of the reader... To you I give to you the mental image of Shirou dual wielding Soul Edge and Soul Calibur while teabagging both Nightmare and Siegfried. Double dip and sip, extended pinky of course... actually, now that I think about it... I expect this to be a thing at a certain point of the story, because that mental image is too funny not to use. Expect teabagging from our hero at some point in this story, because that is now a thing.**_

_**Fic o the day:**_Zero's Noble Overlord by Shintouyu _**Louise summons a Good alignment overlord, well sort of good alignment. He'll still maul anything that moves if it threatens what he owns but overall The Overlord in this story isn't a jerkass or chaotic.**_

_**Song/s of the day: **_8bit Persona 4 - I'll face myself _**Continuing with the persona theme today, some 8-bit badassery.**_

_**Word/s of the day: **_Exacerbate _**v. Make (a problem, bad situation, or negative feeling) worse**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Any of the Fate or Soul Franchises, those are owned by the people who own them.**_

_**-ooo-**_

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

**"/Dark/evil creatures talking"**

_**"/Dark/evil creatures thinking"**_

_**Narrator i.e. ME speaking (Because that's how I roll. Plus you can imagine me speaking in scene breaks riiight now)**_

_**-ooo-**_

_**Chapter 1: Of Souls, Swords and...**_

_**Transcending history and the world. A tale of souls and swords, eternally retold. Until now.**_

An old man stood upon a hill, watching the battle below him unfold. It was a battle since ages immemorial, a tale of two swords, eternally bound to fight one another.

Soul Edge. The Evil Great sword that corrupts the minds and wills of any who come into contact with it.

Soul Calibur. The Holy Great sword that was forged from a fragment of Soul Edge to be it's ultimate bane .

Two swords. Two destiny's.

The old man, Wizard Marshall Zelretch watched the two warriors battle. The first, a terrible creature known as Nightmare. A creature of corruption and evil given form by it's swords' corrupted power. And the other, a young cursed human by the name of Zeigfried who wielded the only weapon that could destroy Soul Edge. They both struck, fighting it out for supremacy, knowing that neither would win in the end and the status quo would forever remain the same.

The old man smirked, remembering another tale of souls and swords, not as eternal but no less entertaining, though the boy turned man had ceased being amusing after he had completed his destiny. It was sad to think that his destiny would end in him becoming a Counter Guardian and start the bitter process anew when his future self met his past self in the present _**(AN Yeah that's trippy) **_but...such was fate it seemed,

The old man's smirk turned vicious "Let's change that little detail, shall we?" And in a Kaleidoscope of energy the man disappeared from the hilltop overlooking that battlefield.

_**-ooo-**_

Shirou Emiya, a man well into his 20's, his skin a dusky tan and auburn hair going prematurely white, eyes that used to be a honey golden had turned a slate gray. He was a man cursed with a superhero complex. A man who spends his every waking moment in the pursuit of saving others, every moment spent brings him closer to his eternal damnation and his future life as a Counter Guardian at the hands of Alaya.

Shirou could feel his time drawing near. He remembered well Archer, his future self that had tried to kill him during the Holy Grail War to create a paradox and make sure he never took the Counter Guardian job in the first place. He looked like him now, same features, same clothing, almost a reflection of the man he was to become. He knew he would have to make the choice soon, he had already mastered Unlimited Blade Works due to his copying of Archer's memories and abilities. Now, he was but a few gray hairs away from an almost complete resemblance of the man.

Sighing, the boy turned man pushed those depressing thoughts away and to next remember his ex-lovers. Rin and Saber. Years ago, right after the end of the Fifth Grail War they had been happy to be with each other... but then Rin had been invited to The Association by a very well to do Noble that had sponsored the promising girl. It was a once in a lifetime thing for a Japanese magus and sadly Rin took it. Sad, because he couldn't join her. She had offered to make him her apprentice but that idea had been quickly shelved. Shirou was a unique magus who used entirely unique magecraft, something that Rin had no experience or skill with. The only real way to progress Shirou's skills with his magecraft was to use it in the real world, applied to real world problems.

It was one of the reasons why he always considered himself a terrible magus. Where Rin would tout the academy and study of magecraft, Shirou had always been more for practical application, a blasphemy in the eyes of most magi. Of course, Rin was always more accepting then most, in her own stubborn way she had cared for him and he for her.

As for Saber... She hadn't taken well to his refusal to accompany Rin and her to England. She had pledged and oath to Shirou to remain as his Servant despite her contract to Rin, a mutual situation for all three of the lovers. She had nearly drawn Excalibur to flay his hide when he had made his declaration of going on a journey to find himself and to come to terms with who he was. The two girls knew what he was doing, they knew that he was going to end up just like Archer if they weren't with him to guide his steps.

He had fought back their anger, even threatening Saber with Rule Breaker if she didn't allow him this. A knight's word, due to the oaths they make throughout all their lives through the many orders of knights that have existed, their word became something of a Noble Phantasm. A Knights oath was a pseudo magical contract and Rule Breaker still applied in this case.

That finally had them relent, they didn't like it, but they knew they couldn't change his mind if he was willing to use something like that to convince them. So, reluctantly, they let him go. It was as much of a mutual break up as was possible at the time and a sad day for the three of them, but in the end it was inevitable.

Now, standing here, feeling his time drawing near, all he could do was make a choice. Sacrifice his morals and innocent souls? Or sacrifice himself?

He had already made his decision.

Or at least he would have had an old man not appeared 5 inches in front of him and greeted him like they were the best of pals...

Wait what?

"Hello Shirou Emiya." The old man in front of him greeted, slapping a hand down on his shoulder.

"Uwah?" Came the barely understandable reply from the flabbergasted man.

"Oh don't be like that!" The old man laughed heartily. "I've just come to keep you from making a silly decision." The grin on the man's face grew wider. "That and I'm bored, so I've come to stir up a bit of entertainment."

"Uwah?" really, this was beginning to confuse the poor sword wielding magi.

"The name's Zelretch!" He happily boomed. "And I've got a bit of a story for you."

Shirou's face paled at the older man's name. Wizard Marshall Zelretch, a man known for his flighty personality along with his cruel and sadistic humor. A man known around the world for one thing above all others.

His use of The Second Magic: Kaleidoscope. The ability to travel across dimensions at will.

And this ridiculously powerful, batshit insane man wanted to tell him a story...The root preserve him because Gaia sure as hell wouldn't.

Shirou tried to back away from the man but he was surprised at the deathly powerful grip on his shoulder. Looking from the hand to the man's face, he noticed that a very disturbing smile had made it's way onto the Wizard Marshall's face.

"Don't try to run away now." He spoke in an eerily calm voice. "I've got a tale about two swords that I'm willing to share with you."

Now that had the white haired sword user's attention. Swords were one of the few things that could calm him down in a stressful situation and this was no different. So he reluctantly stilled, allowing the man to speak.

And so Zelretch gave the boy an abridged version of the history of the twin swords, Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. The sword magus sat there in rapt attention as he listened, a sucker for stories of heros and villains duking it out for the fate of the world. It was a practically wet dream of his since he turned the proper age to actually have wet dreams.

"And even now they still duel, the fate of the world hanging in the balance." The elderly Magus finished his tale with a flourish of his hands.

Shirou, for his part, released a breath that he hadn't even realized he'd been holding, the 'on the edge of his seat' feeling leaving him as the story came to a close. "Alright, I'll bite." He leveled a mildly curious stare on the Wizard Marshall. "Why the heck are you telling me this story, as many rumors I've heard of you, none of them have said anything about you just showing up for no reasons just to tell people stories. There's another reason for you being here, right?"

"Hah!" The old man crowed. "You may be socially inept but you can be pretty sharp when you want to be, a benefit from your dual origins maybe?" The man smirked at his own little joke. "You're right, Like I said before, I've come to stir up a little bit of entertainment." Holding a hand up to forestall the argument of why a nearly omniscient and omnipresent being that can travel between the fabric of existence needs to be entertained, the man explained it simply. "Despite what you may think, most alternate universe's are actually quite dull."

Shirou looked at the man like he was crazy.

"You obviously don't realize that EVERY choice and EVERY moment is actualized into existence the moment a choice is made. Imagine for a moment, going to a grocery store and choosing between one beverage and another. There are two universes where THAT is the only difference between the two." He replied dryly. "The only enjoyable difference between those two universes that I've found was that in a separate timeline of one of those two choices the man choked on his bottle cap, now that was an unexpected and amusing outcome if I do say so myself."

Shirou stared at the man in shock. _'Ok, scratch crazy, this guy is psychotic.'_ The sword user backed away slowly from the Kaleidoscope using magus in front of him, hoping beyond hope that he could escape before the man tried to strong arm him into something he'd regret, usually that something was terribly embarrassing and socially unacceptable. The man's idea of a joke apparently.

"But enough banter!" The man spoke mirthfully. "I am here, Shirou Emiya, to give you a once in a lifetime chance to go to this strange new universe to save people from the despicable Soul Edge!" He held a hand up condescendingly, a rueful smile on his face. "For my amusement of course."

Shirou stopped when he heard those magical words _'Saving people'_ Like the drop of a hat Shirou was no longer in his (As Rin would put it) Wimpy Idiot mode. Now he was pure business, his countless battles having hardened his otherwise goofy persona. "Alright, I'm listening. Also, while I'm eager to help people as you are probably aware, this seems like a right stupid idea even for me." A single ash gray eyebrow rose. "How do I know you aren't just playing a prank on me and I'll not end up in some ridiculous situation for your amusement?"

The Aged Magus' eyebrows rose, and a lip pushed forward in a thoughtful pout as his index finger tapped his chin. "Well, aside from me _not_ turning you into fuzzy woodland creature or dumping you in the tentacle rape universe... I guess all hero's need a reward at the end of their adventures." The tapping continued until he snapped his fingers, a wide grin on his face. "Got it!" He turned a maddened stare on the younger man. "If you go through with this and follow this story to its conclusion I'll give you two boons to do with what you will."

All was quiet for a moment before Shirou's eyes widened comically. A boon from the Wizard Marshall Zelretch? TWO of them? The mere thought of that kind of favor would have made Rin soak her panties. The Wizened old magus was practically an Akashic record by virtue of his True Magic. He could pluck anything from any dimension and hand it to you on a silver platter, even things that have long since been dead and buried.

Speaking of dead and buried, the Wizard Marshall, who just so happened to be an undead Apostle ancestor in his own right, smiled deviously at the man. "I could even return your Ilya to you, in perfect health if you wish. There are plenty of Alternate Universe's that have you die instead of her and I'm sure she'd be ecstatic to see you again."

Shirou's breathing became ragged as his breath caught in his throat. Illyasviel von Einzbern, Ilya. His sister by his adoption and Kiritsugu Emiya's true biological daughter. He hadn't known then when Gilgamesh had ripped the poor girls heart out of her chest, but over the years of sifting through Archer's memories, that little tidbit of information had brought the then young man to his knees unlike anything he had yet experienced. The fit of depression he'd later found himself in had lasted almost three months over that information. He had failed his father in protecting the one thing that he had cherished equally alongside Shirou himself. His Daughter.

To be given a chance to make right his mistakes and grant some measure of happiness to the small homunculus would be worth any sacrifice. Schooling his face in calm acceptance the Sword Magus stared down Zelretch, arguably one of, if not the strongest mage currently on Gaia and nodded "Alright, I'll do it." Making a deal with the proverbial devil himself, not nearly as bad as a deal with Alaya but close enough that it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

Zelretch actually blinked at the quick acceptance, he knew that the kid was noble in his pursuits but to just readily agree to something without finalizing everything was as reckless as it came. A feral grin forced it's way onto the man's face. That was just how he liked the hero's of the little flights of fancy he created; reckless, courageous and willing to go through almost stupid levels of pain to see their task done. It was a cruel thing really, to derive plasure and enjoyment from another persons suffering, but the ancient Apostle Ancestor had long since rationalized this cruelty and besides- his cruel smirk turned pervy for a moment. -He was going to make this kids life one hell of a fun ride, rather then that boring hell of an existence that waited for him as a Counter Guardian. In his honest opinion, his meddling was actually less cruel than the existence that he had pulled them from.

"So you're just going to agree? Just like that?" Zelretch asked curiously. "No hesitation at all?"

The downright stony and even glare he got in return answered his question long before the sword user did. "Hesitation leads to death, whether mine or an innocents. That I cannot allow."

Zelretch snorted, then burst into a fit of laughter. "Well said my boy, well said!" I suppose I should reward that kind of thinking as well, hmm." He tapped his chin in thought for a moment before moving his left hand over the younger man's right. "Ahh, this should do."

A small crackle of multicolored magical energy filled the air as a hiss of pain came from Shirou, his left hand covering the sizzling flesh underneath. After the pain had faded he removed his hand to find an arcane set of markings on the back of his right hand, twitching every so often as blood passed underneath the skin of the marks. The tribal like markings themselves ran from each knuckle to a jagged circle on the back of his hand which was filled with arcane words and runes of power, from the bottom of that circle ran twin lines all the way up until it disappeared underneath the T-shirt he wore underneath his battle clothing, most likely leading up to his shoulder. Staring down at the tattoo on his limb, he could only marvel at the complexity of the...thing that had been imprinted on him.

"That, Shirou Emiya!-" Zelretch boasted, bringing a rather meat hook of a fist before his face as if he was proud of the little stunt he'd just pulled. "-Is the Magic Crest of your family from an alternate reality. Oh and don't worry, the last member of that branch of your clan was about to die so it's entirely OK for you to have it."

Que jaw drop, processing, jaw dropping, jaw drop complete. It would take the Sword Magus many moments to scrap his face off the ground, which in the meantime Zelretch had started speaking again.

"Well, I think it's time I sent you on your way. You can play with your crest later when you have time to Structurally Grasp it." With a click of his fingers a rip in the fabric of space and time appeared behind Shirou. "Now GO! On to a tale of Souls, Swords and SEXY WOMEN!"

"Wait! What's with that last-" Shirou tried to say but Zelretch appeared in front of the doomed sword user with a wicked smirk on his face.

"Have a nice trip." He pushed the man through. After the window had closed and the sword users screaming like a little girl had cut off, the Wizard Marshall spoke again. "See you next fall..." The smile fell slightly into a frown. "I really need to learn a better one liner for that...hmmm." The man looked curious for a moment as he felt the Young Emiya touch down in the Soul Calibur universe. "I wonder if I should have told him that I procured that Magic Crest from the Emiya Clan section of the multiverse...?"

...

"Nahhhh." He waved a hand in front of his face dismissively. "He'll find out when he structurally grasps it and more fun for me besides. After all-" A lecherous little grin made it's way on the Wizard Marshall's face. "-The harem must be fed Muahahahahahaaa."

With a slight pop the man disappeared in a swirling rainbow of color.

All was silent for a moment before...

POP!

Zelretch's head appeared from another tear in the fabric of reality, looking disturbingly similar to a certain green skinned wizard from an equally familiar story about a woman who like's to skip down a yellow brick road.

"OY!" Zelretch's head looked straight up in the air. "I heard that you lazy ass author!" The man's gaze shifted from looking up to staring straight ahead, his gaze melting what little fourth wall that was still left. "I see you, you little fink bastards. Start reviewing so the lazy bastard of an author can get off his ass and write the second chapter, I'm damn sure not waiting two months like last time.

_**(A/N Hey I resent that remark!)**_

"You mean you resemble that remark, Now get to work!" His eyes turned back to the audience. "NOW START REVIEWING OR I'LL SEND YOU TO THE TENTACLE RAPE UNIVERSE! ZELRETCH AWAY!" With a slight pop the man was again gone, the fabric of reality and sanity setting itself right once again.

_**(A/N ...Is...Is he gone? ... Good! Now on to the End chapter AN's)**_

_**-ooo-**_

_**Ok now that that's settled we can finally end this with something that isn't harmful to the sanity of sentient be-.**_

POP!

"Hey I forgot to mention that-"

_**OH NO YOU FUCKING DON'T! *SPARTA KICK***_

_**You know what? Fine. We'll just save small talk for the next chapter... (If there is one, that's up to you guys)**_

"Spoil Sport"

_**That does it! UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS!**_

"Oh fu- *Call Lost*


	2. Chapter 2

_**Ok here's the next chapter, A reviewer asked what time line this was set in, so here's the run down. The story is an AU set in Soul Calibur 4 since that is the point in the series where all the women who are going to be in the harem are perfectly in place. As for who's going to be in the harem? 6 women and I've already decided who they are. So, sorry if you think I should add more than that because I've already got like 2 mass harem stories going and one that's going to be a minor harem and the last is probably going to be at least a threesome or something. Yeah I know, that's a bit bonkers to wrap my head around it too. BUT! If you want a hint as to who the 6 women are... Well... here's a hint. Truth, Courage, Duty, Deliverance, Honor and Devotion.**_

_**Also, since this is an AU there are some key differences in canon that I'll be making throughout the series to suit my needs, these will be explained in story if they are large changes, or if they are small changes then some minor dialogue should be appropriate since they shouldn't be that out there for anyone to believe. There will be one small change this chapter in particular, if you know the lore you can spot it right away.**_

_**On with the story.**_

_**Fic o' the day:**_ The Familiars of Zero by Corvus no Genmu _**A series of one shot like chapters of different people, creatures and things that Louise could accidentally summon. A what if series that I enjoyed immensely.**_

_**Song/vid of the day: **_Emiya Archer & Shirou UBW _** Look for the vid by jamierawr88, that's the right one**_

_**Word/s of the day:**_ Thunderballing. -To give a good shagging to. _**I found this amusing.**_

_**Disclaimer, I don't on the fate or Soul Franchise, those are owned by the owners :/ this is just a work of mindless fun.**_

_**- ooo-**_

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

**"/Dark/evil creatures talking"**

_**"/Dark/evil creatures thinking"**_

_**-ooo-**_

_**Chapter 2: It Begins!**_

POP!

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHUOOOF!"

Dust rose into the air as our hero, Shirou Emiya slammed into the ground after having been dumped from extraplaner space. Face first, unfortunately.

The man groaned as he rolled onto his back, raising a hand to cover his eyes as the glare from the sunlight beat down on his body. "Why do I always land on my face?" He grumbled, not for the first time cursing his luck in unexpected landings. Rising from the small crater he landed in, the faker set about making sure everything was still connected properly, then making sure he had everything with him.

After both checks turned out positive, the Sword user stood, dusting himself off before taking stock of where he was. It wasn't much to look at... for miles in almost all directions all he could see was wasteland, the only key features were a forest, around a half mile off to the south, and a single ominous castle far off to the north.

Castle, Forest, Castle, Forest, Castle?

An arrow landed an inch away from his foot from the direction of the Castle, several strange looking lizard men coming out from behind a boulder not far off in that direction, all of them armed to the teeth (Quite literally speaking) and looking for blood.

Forest it is then.

Turning on his heel, the Faker shunted an obscene amount of prana to his limbs and body, hyper-actualizing in one of his only skills in magic. Reinforcement. Like a shot, he took off towards the forest, running faster than even an Olympic sprinter, breaking several human speed records in the process. Not like he cared really, this was just his normal Reinforcement speed, he wasn't even empowering himself with Unlimited Blade Works yet.

The Lizard Men fell behind as the man put half a mile and a cloud of dust between himself and them. It was only a few minutes later that he realized he wasn't being followed and came to a stop, his breathing only slightly labored from the exertion.

"Ok." He mumbled to himself, sitting down to calm himself and take stock of his situation. "I've been transported to a different dimension, I nearly get attacked my first minute here, and I have no clue where I am." He sweatdropped slightly. "Well, at least it isn't too far off from what I'm normally used to." This was probably his dozenth time landing in an unknown place face first and then have some strange being attack him out of nowhere. Even now, he could hear Rin's voice in his head calling him an unlucky baka.

Shaking his head to clear those thoughts the man set about doing the one thing that had been bugging him since he got it. The Magic Crest on his hand.

Pulling back the sleeve of his longcoat, the white haired man stared down at the unique Magic crest, even now he could feel the power thrumming through it. Curious, he ran a bit of prana through the thing watching it light up like lightning bolt as dozens of green lines ran between the twin lines that led up to his shoulder, between each of the runes within the circle and between each line of the knuckle. All in all it looked like a demented dream catcher tattooed on his arm. Satisfied with the result, the Faker used one of his other few magecraft on the thing. Structural Grasping. The ability to grasp every layer of an object (Hence the name, obviously) Going so far as to understand the age, purpose, make, any physical and Magical abilities inherent in the metal and (in the case of his blades) even the forging process that was used by the creator.

Looking down at the unassuming tattoo the man scanned the item and nearly collapsed on the spot.

No.

No way.

NO! NO! NOPE! NO WAY! NOOOO!

Shirou Emiya, one of the most powerful sword magus' on the planet, facepalmed at the sheer absurdity of what he was seeing.

To list the craziness that was his supposed clan's Magic crest.

Conceptualized awesomeness, (How the hell you even conceptualize something as abstract as awesome was beyond the blade user.) Sixty, (yes, count them) SIXTY magic circuits were placed into the framework of the crest, allowing an absurd amount of prana flow.

To put into laymen's terms, Shirou had a pool of around a hundred Od (Due to his reinforcement of his body and constant projection of Noble Phantasm level weapons stressing his pool) and twenty-seven magic circuits that could channel around twenty-five Od each. He had unfortunately allowed them to stagnate from under use due to the fact that up until the Holy Grail war he had been using his nerves to cast his magecraft, a dangerous and downright suicidal method by most established magus'. Shirou's twenty-seven circuits used to be able to handle only ten units of prana each and he had been told that he'd never get past that number but due to his never give up attitude the tenacious man had wormed his way up to twenty-five in spite of all the things holding him back. So, all in all told he could naturally output six hundred and seventy-five units of prana at any given time.

The output of the Magic Circuits of THIS Crest was no less than eighty units of prana. EACH. On par with the Tousaka Magic Crest, an established and touted clan of magecraft.

Combined, he could output almost five THOUSAND five hundred units of prana. A far cry to what he was capable of before. It was times like this that he was thankful he could use Mana to fill in the gaps that his now extreme output took up.

Of course, it was nowhere close to Rin's pool of five hundred units of Od and her nearly seven thousand plus unit output, which included her crest. Still it was nothing to scoff at either. _**(*)**_

But what really, REALLY took the cake for the faker was the actual use and history of the crest. His alternate self, had a harem... Not just any harem... It was a harem composed of more than twenty-two members, nearly half of which happened to be a here-to-unknown alien species and a human who was the lover of one of them. Along with that there was Rin, Sakura, Arturia, Medusa, Aoko Aozaki, (the user of the FIFTH-FUCKING-MAGIC) Toukou Aozaki (Her SISTER in a false doll body) Bazette FRAGA, Luviagelita EDELFELT, Altrouge Brunestud, (a dead apostle ANCESTOR of all things) Lorelei Barthomeloi (the QUEEN and VICE DIRECTOR of the Magus association) and ... oh dear god... no... nonononono...

Alaya-ko... His alternate self boinked the personification of the Will of Humanity, the thing that would have cursed him to an afterlife of Counter Guardianship.

He had fucked humanity... and from what he could gather... enjoyed it immensely.

And...and was that Gilgamesh...in an apron...with number one nanny embroidered on the front...?

After those two minor stroke slash heart attacks the man dug deeper, searching through countless branches. It was odd, his alternate self was basically the progenitor of (What he could tell) the largest magical clan in history, having well over 30 children from all of his wives, spouses and mistresses, a memetic sex god (whatever the hell that was) and a master of his secondary Reality Marble.

"Unlimited Harem Works..." The sword user shook his head in disbelief. This didn't even count all of the children his alternate self's children had. All told there were over three hundred members of the Emiya Clan before any of the first generation had finally died off. Not only that but they were now related to over half of the well established Magus clans, including the Barthomeloi, arguably the most powerful today, beside his own.

Hell, his alternate self had even married another alternate version of himself... or herself as the case may be. His clan had apparently been very active in the multiverse, coming across Zelretch (Which explained how the man was able to procure this crest) and other anomaly's that transported them across dimensions. But still...Selfcest... it was a new term that the faker felt mildly uncomfortable about... and apparently this was the crest of that branch.

Yeah, you heard right, branch. Since the clan was so large, the Emiya's had taken up the practice of creating a magic crest for each branch of the clan, well over twenty Magic Crests passed down The Emiya Clan line.

After a half dozen more generations after the first generation died, the clan had become the ruling body of the ENTIRE world, even going so far as to reveal the secret of thaumaturgy to the non magical world. At that time the science of humanity was sufficient enough to be considered magecraft in it's own right and the leaders of the Magus Association (Which were predominantly Emiya Clan members at the time) had agreed to reveal itself. The World (Both magical and not) would look back on that day in an almost child-like wonder. The point where humanity was finally brought together as one unified entity.

To see the family that he started (Or at least a version of him) have a hand in all that... it was... humbling to be honest.

And all it took was him marrying an almost absurd number of women and fathering an equally absurd number of children. But that begged the question, seeing as he was working towards world peace and all...was this a viable method of creating peace? Conquering the world through superior numbers? There was no bloodshed as far as he could tell, his family had simply ingrained themselves in society, slowly taking control of all levels of power, a natural form of domination and control, generations in the making?

That got the sword user curious. Working further into the structure of the Crest, the Emiya divined the practical application to the magecraft that was inherent in the symbol itself. Aside from the conceptual awesomeness and the insane boost of prana channeling capability, there was one final ability placed into the crest.

A magic based on the progenitor of the Crest, the alternate Shirou himself. It was a crystallization of his alternate self's allure, an ability which was cleverly named _Allure_ or the power to attract the opposite sex. (In some cases the same sex.) He had created the twenty or so crests out of his own magic circuits, this particular one contained the origin 'Sword' of it's original owner, but it also contained a secondary origin that had apparently been actualized due to the alternate Shirou Emiya's renown as the progenitor of Clan Emiya. Over the many generations since his reign each of the Crests had taken on an origin of 'Harem' due to the world believing Shirou as the ultimate builder of harems (which was further cemented by many of his sons and daughters who also had harems) So anything directly associated with his body (including the magic circuits that made up the crests) took on an almost Noble Phantasm level. It was a silly origin in theory, but considering what he had seen so far, an appropriate origin in practice for his alternate self's abilities.

Which had always been the Emiya way, practical application over theory.

But the real question, how would he use these new abilities? What practical application could he use these for, besides the obvious...

From what he could tell, Allure only worked on the gender the user was attracted to, so that this wouldn't cause any complications due to the user or the target's sexual orientation. Allure was always active and it constantly emitted at an E-Rank level, something that would only create a minor reaction of mild fondness in those around them, which explained the charismatic nature of his clan after a certain point which allowed them to essentially rule the world.

The real magic however, was when the crest was used during combat, which would bump the level up to B+ rank and cause reactions depending on what level magic resistance the opposing party had. For someone like Saber, who had a Magic resistance up to A rank it would have bounced off of her like it was nothing. However for someone like Rider who only had a B rank magic resistance, she would have reacted as if it had been an E Rank level, which went up as each level of Magic resistance went down, becoming B+ rank when the person being fought had no magical resistance to speak of.

The world he was currently occupying didn't feel extremely magical, so he could only assume that the people in this world either had an E rank resistance to magic, which was to say no resistance beyond what was normal, or at best a D rank resistance, possibly higher if there were a few magic wielders in this world and would make just about anyone short of a select few fair game.

Which kind of scared the sword user really. He wasn't a blushing virgin by any means since, he, Saber and Rin had done more than their fair share of hanky panky before they had to break up. But this... this was a bit much even for him. Did he actively want to pursue the methods his alternate self went through for world peace?

"Who are you!?" A voice, a _feminine_ voice called from behind him, the sound of steel being released from a sheath quite apparent.

He'd have to get back to that later. Right now there was a very, very valid threat standing only a few feet behind him.

Rising slowly so as not to tempt the woman's ire, Shirou kept his hands above his head so that she wouldn't strike him while he tried to stand.

"Who are you?" The voice asked again, this time with a clear intent of hostility.

Shirou turned, hands still above his head to face the speaker.

_**-ooo-**_

Sophitia Alexandra, a woman of uncommon beauty and even more uncommon sword skill pointed her blade down upon the man in front of her "Who are you!?" She barked, knowing full well she might have to kill this individual. She had watched the youth run away from the Lizard men guards of Ostrheinsburg Castle, a castle which she herself protected, held in bondage at the threat of her daughters life. She had killed dozens if not hundreds of men and women to protect the cursed evil sword that held her daughter Phyrra enslaved to it's will. Even now she cursed the blade, the thing that had stolen her peaceful life from her, had stolen her family. The thought of her husband and her son came to mind as she stared down at the broad back of the man who had just now started to rise, the thought of them dead despite all she had sacrificed, killed by that insane bitch Tira who had abducted her daughter... and now the only thing left of her family was her little girl and she meant to protect her as long as she could, trying to find a way to free her while she was forced to do Soul Edge's will.

He was about the same age as her husband she noted as the man turned around. Though surprise lilted through her brain when she realized just how handsome the man was. He was tall, surprisingly so, easily seven inches taller than her with hard gray eyes, a firm jaw, and naturally tan skin tone along with white hair the color of fallen snow which created this ethereal beauty that was only matched by the aura the man exuded. The sheer calm demeanor that marked the man as a warrior and one who was completely comfortable in the situation he had just found himself in. That thought brought a measure of fear to the woman's heart. To be so uncaring with a blade held in your face, to stare down someone who could possibly be your death without a single shred of fear... An uncontrollable little shiver went up the woman's spine.

Meanwhile, Shirou was nearly sweating bullets, though the poker face he'd built through countless battles had stayed in place as he turned to face the woman who had drawn her sword on him. The first thing he noticed was the beauty of the woman in front of him. Golden hair, pulled back into a pony tail and tied off with an aqua hued bow, eyes of the same ocean color and fair skin that covered a face that was almost too cute and innocent to match the woman's fit body and large breasts. Out of many of the women he had seen in his lifetime very few ever matched the aura of enchantment that he had witnessed during the Holy Grail War. With women like Caster, Rider and Saber, all three women renowned for their rare and elegant features; beauty matched only in legends and this woman came very, very close. An appraising eye roved over the woman's body, activating Structural Analysis all the while so he could get a measure of the woman's skills and abilities.

The first thing he noted were her weapons. The Omega Sword & Elk Shield, a short sword and small buckler shield forged from holy ore by the woman's husband on order and blessing from Hephaestus, a Greek god of fire and blacksmiths. It didn't have any magical enchantments like he had expected but it did have a purifying aura inherent in all goodly god blessed items. Archiving the weapon in his mind, the man continued his search, going over the off white, roughly Athenian dress and shoes. He then noted the earrings, the shoulder guards, the several arm and shin guards along with the belt buckle, all of steel and designed in brilliant azure colors and gemstones. Overall he likened her appearance to an innocent and subtle ocean current. However, her demeanor at the moment was more like a raging squall, her face holding a look of anger but also a hint of apprehension, like she didn't want to do this.

That was something the Magus picked up on quickly and forced a small chink in the girls determined armor.

"Um, hello." Shirou greeted the woman, waving cheerfully with one hand. "You wouldn't happen to know where we are right now would you?" That's it, divert attention away from your reasons for being there in the first place, confuse her so that she lets her guard down and hopefully...

Sophitia gave the man a strange look. "How do you not know where you are? I saw you fall from the sky right before you were chased by those Lizard men, how is it that you have come here?"

Ok, you've confused her, now to divert her attention even further. "I don't know actually." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "One moment I was talking to an old man on the street, the next I'm falling out of the sky here." Really, he didn't know exactly by what methods Zelretch's Kaleidoscope worked when it teleported people, just that it did. A half truth on his part but it satisfied the woman enough for her to lower her weapon.

"My name is Sophitia Alexandra, who are you?" She asked smoothly, taking a single step back, though she did keep her weapons out and in hand in case he tried anything.

"Shirou Emiya." The faker answered truthfully. "And you still haven't answered my question."

"Japanese?" She asked curiously, narrowing her eyes all the while. "You are near Castle Ostrheinsburg in Germany."

"Ostrheinsburg?" Shirou blinked, wasn't that where Zelretch said that Soul Edge was currently located? A calculated look appeared on the man's face as he did another scan of Sophitia, It was a strange set of occurrences if this woman had seen him fall to the ground. Where he had landed was relatively flat ground as far as he could see with maybe a few boulders here and there. If she had seen him fall then she must have been seen by the lizard men as well and if that was the case, why did she appear unharmed, like they had completely ignored her?

There! An eyebrow rose imperceptibly as he saw with his own eye's exactly what had been bothering him the entire time. There was a small piece of... something sitting right next to the woman's heart and by the root was it corrupted beyond all manner and reason. If he had to guess, it was probably a shard of Soul Edge, something Zelretch had mentioned in his tale, a shard of malignant power that would twist it's users to do the swords bidding.

That thought, the possibility that this woman would turn on him at a moments notice put the man on edge. Not willing to risk the chance, the blade user loaded several copy's of Kanshou and Bakuya into his mind, ready, just in case he had to do the one thing that he was good at, the one thing that set him apart from any other Magus in history.

Apparently the woman sensed a change in the way Shirou held himself as she had backed away from him, holding her sword and shield up in front of her for defense.

"What are you doing?" She hissed? After a moment of him not responding she glared at him. "You're here for Soul Edge aren't you? That damned cursed sword?" It was more of a statement than a question as she caught the man's minute nod. "Very well." She spoke solemnly, leaping forward to stab the man in his guts, completely prepared to end this man who would take Soul Edge and endanger her daughter's life.

That's when she heard two words, barely a whisper.

"Trace on."

Sophitia's eyes widened as her blade was caught between the crossed points of a pair of blades that she hadn't noticed the man carrying. They were mirror images of each other except one was as black as night and the other as white as Ivory, both however, were short and wickedly curved, perfect for defense and making quick decisive cuts.

Her shield came up to block the staccato of strikes that numbed her arm, pushing her back all the while. With a roar the man she had thought unarmed leapt forward, smashing both of his swords against her shield, nearly caving her knee in on that side at the sheer weight behind the dual blows.

Falling back, the woman focused on dodging the man's strikes, though any time she thought she was out of striking range he would appear before her like a giant red reaper of death to strike her shield again, putting more and more damage upon that one knee. It was a very common tactic to use against shielded foes, with a heavy enough strike you could force a shield user to their knees with enough applied force over their center of weight, which was usually over their shield arm as the somewhat heavy thing was placed over the leading leg to support the extra weight.

Sure, Sophitia's shield was smaller than normal and the girl was quick on her feet but that also meant she wasn't as physically strong or stout as a larger, stronger opponent. So striking her shield arm would be just as effective, if not moreso.

The entire time this had been happening, Sophitia had been backing away from the white haired man, the crimson of his cloak flitting in and out of her vision as she back tracked through the wooded area. The man was fast despite his tall stature and he was easily pressing his advantage in height and strength. Even his dexterity was beyond normal as another series of loud clangs of metal on metal met her ears, signaling another jackhammer of strikes to her shield.

The girls breathing was coming in gasps now as she felt her shield arm go completely numb from all the repeated strikes. But that wasn't all that she was feeling at the moment... no, it had started the moment he had blocked her blade. The moment her sword met his... it was like an electric shock shot through her arm and hit her right in the heart. Even now she could feel it, her body was heating up and skin going flush like she was coming down with a fever.

Desperation was beginning to set it, she hadn't expected the man to be this skilled in combat and her body was beginning to fail on her. So, desperate to put some distance between her and him she stopped trying to defend and used her shield as a battering ram to bash the numb limb and metal plate into the man's stomach.

With a small exhale of air the shield dug into it's target, drawing thrusting power from the woman's feet by digging into the ground, adding more leverage to the push which knocked the white haired man off his feet. Also, to add to that, the woman took a half hearted slash with her sword which scored a small nick over the man's brow. She prayed it was enough to blind his vision with blood while she made her escape.

With a grunt, Shirou took the shield blow as best as he could. He hadn't expected the woman who was easily half his weight and size to pack such a huge punch, the small sting to his forehead told of a glancing blow from the woman's blade and it was a lucky thing really. She could have killed him in that instant, simply from him making assumptions but luck was apparently on his side today as he had Reinforced his body right before the start of the battle. So, even if the girl had made more than a glancing blow, the weak strike most likely would have bounced off his Reinforced skull, leaving a deep gash in the skin and bone. Dangerous, but not nearly as lethal as the alternative. As it stood, he just had the wind knocked out of him and a small wound that would barely be an annoyance.

At least it would have been an annoyance if the woman had been there when he had recouped himself. Glancing around quickly the faker made sure that his back was protected as he expanded his senses. It was a skill most magi had, a sixth sense for detecting magecraft which was usually shunted through one of their senses. For him, it went through his sense of smell... which got him called bloodhound by Rin on more than one occasion. The Sword Magus took a deep sniff of the air, taking in any and all magical traces he could find. The girl and her weapons were not magical in the slightest, but that shard stuck in her chest exuded a distinct aura of magic that made her easily traceable. After a moment of pinpointing her location it wasn't surprising that the woman was running, a pronounced limp in her stride as she hadn't made it very far but she was definitely moving away from him.

Normally Shirou would have just let her go, it wasn't in him to hunt down and kill an innocent girl who was being controlled against her will but something made him face the direction she had run off in and rush after her. That something was a feeling he couldn't describe, he had felt it the moment their swords had crossed, the moment he had run prana through his body in Reinforcement and the moment raw prana had touched the crest on his right hand... the means with which to trigger the crest's secondary origin properties...

Unknown to him, the crest apparently worked both ways. He felt the connection from their battle actualize and he was subconsciously drawn to her, his instincts overriding his brain for the dozen or so seconds it took him to catch up to the woman.

His speed really was impressive when he wanted something bad enough.

Sophitia gasped as she felt her blood boil again, her limbs going numb out from under her. It was safe to say that the woman had almost no magical resistance to speak of, despite having a magical artifact lodged in her chest. Since the woman was inherently good, the inherently evil shard couldn't be arsed in the slightest to help the woman overcome this disability. Of course she did have Hephaestus blessing to protect her from these things but her less than pious attitude, her grief from losing the man she loved and her only son, and the simple fact that most of, if not all blessings of just about any god in the multiverse were only meant to counteract evil influences.

Shirou's influence wasn't evil, at worst it was neutral without a single speck of ill intent, so the blessing's of the god of fire and blacksmiths (for what they were worth) essentially did jack all.

So with nothing else to do and her limbs turning to spaghetti, the Athenian collapsed on her behind, legs splayed out and leaning forward on her hands while she gasped for breath. A shadow fell over her then and she looked up in terror along with an emotion she hadn't felt since she had met her husband so many years ago.

Shirou blinked, coming to from his mild loss of mental faculty to find himself staring down at the nearly prone Sophitia, the woman's face holding a mix of terror and arousal that threatened to choke the girl into unconsciousness. It was then he felt a tingling from his right hand and the telltale feeling of a magical contract being formed. Another unknown that he hadn't been able to determine when he had structurally grasped the crest was that the 'harem' origin in the crest formed a verbal contract.

It was similar to a Geis, or more appropriately a version used by Cú Chulainn which was a self imposed Geis, imposing a condition on oneself first which then forced that condition on the opponent and as long as one followed this self set condition the opponent would be forced to as well.

The contract his crest made was similar in that it required a self imposed condition that the crest supplied, working the charm on both parties as the caster used Allure, but beyond that the two were completely different in that it required the consent of both parties to keep the magic going, in this case verbal. If either party had not agreed to the contract then the Allure would have stopped and both parties returned to normal. A fail-safe to make sure the owners of the crest wouldn't just charm and bed any and every person they came across and fought. Apparently using your crest to take advantage of people sexually was something the Emiya Clan frowned upon. (Whoda thunk it?)

Only knowing that a magical contract was in play the Emiya was careful how he phrased his next words. "Sophitia-san, Why did you think it was a good idea to attack me like that?"

The woman looked up in shock and a small hint of anger. "Me? Why were YOU preparing to attack? I saw you tense up and change posture and it was easy to assume you were going to strike me first."

Shirou blinked, before palming his face in irritation, how would he not realize that was what would happen? The girl was practically a strung chord standing across from him, she most likely would have taken his preparation for her attack as a hostile intent.

"I wasn't going to attack you." He sighed. "I sensed a great evil within you and assumed it was possible you were being controlled by it, so I prepared myself in case you attacked." He threw her an annoyed look. "You having your weapons out and ready didn't help that assessment much."

"You..." Confusion flared on Sophitia's face, battling the Allure's enchantment for a moment as she took in those words. "You could tell I was corrupted? How?"

The Sword magus nodded. "Simple really, I have an ability that let's me see the inner workings of things. Like your weapons for instance, The Omega Sword & Elk Shield." The woman's eyes widened at the naming of her weapons. "I could see the shard of Soul Edge in your body, near your heart and assumed it was controlling your actions."

"You'd be fairly close to the truth." She remarked bitterly. At the white haired man's questioning stare the woman explained. "The cursed sword had one of it's minions kill my husband and son while they abducted my daughter. Now, she has been bound to it's will and if it were to be destroyed then so would her life be destroyed." Tear's welled up in the woman's eyes as she looked hopelessly towards the ground. "She's all I have left of my family, I have to protect her, even if it means serving evil."

The woods around them was quiet for many moments, even the wildlife feeling the tension in the air and choosing to remain silent. Then.

"Sound's like some form of magical contract, maybe even a bondage of the soul... hmm, It's possible to free her if you wish."

It was said so casually, without any hint of arrogance in his abilities but that one sentence put more hope in the heart of that broken and tired women than he could even begin to understand. "I-It is?" She stuttered, a look of shock on her face. "...Y-you would free her? Why?"

A rueful little smile appeared on the man's lips. "It is my dream to be a hero of justice, if I can't help a mother free her daughter from an evil sword then I wouldn't be a very good hero now would I?"

Another moment of silence crossed between them before a small giggle came from the woman, almost all tension fleeing her body as the conversation went to a more pleasant topic. "Yes, I suppose so." She giggled again, raising one of her hands up. "I have a question, do you now why I'm feeling the way I am right now?" Light headedness, check. Fluttering heart, check. Flushed cheeks, check. Right now she felt like a blushing little maiden just coming into womanhood and finding out that boys weren't exactly the icky things she'd thought they were.

"Ah.." A small grimace appeared on the man's face as he studied the woman's aroused appearance, a travesty of an expression in Sophitia's opinion, that such a handsome face would be twisted in such a way. If only she could wipe that look away with a quick little...

The Athenian blinked. _'Where in Hephaestus' forge did that thought come from?'_

"I...may know why that's happening, though I didn't expect it to be that... potent..." Well apparently he knew where it had come from, now to determine the reason and intent, the woman thought patiently. "As I said before an elderly man spoke to me earlier and then I found myself here, what I didn't say is that he intentionally sent me here for his own amusement and he gave me this." Shirou held up his right hand so the woman could get a good look at the tattoo on his hand. "It's known as a magic crest by my people and is usually an heirloom of great power passed down through a family or clan." The white haired man's grimace deepened slightly as his brows furrowed. "The man who gave it to me called it a gift and I have since found out why, along with the main function of the crest. Allure, a magic that enchants those of the opposite sex or the same sex in some cases."

"So these feelings I'm experiencing" A pause, as the woman swallowed slightly. "... They are not real?" The Athenian asked sadly.

Wait what? Sadly? Both Shirou and Sophitia stared at each other, both having heard the sadness and longing in her voice.

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "Did... did you want them to be?"

That was an interesting question for the blonde, did she want to continue to feel these emotions? Did she essentially want to be bound to this man as she had been bound by Soul Edge?

Yes and No, was the answer from her heart and head. Her heart wished for that longing touch of another, the one that she had lost when she had found her husband and child dead on the floor. She had spent months grieving and now only felt emptiness from their memory, had her daughter been dead along with the rest of her family she most likely would have taken her own life out of grief.

Her mind however, wished that she stay away from the man, too reluctant to initiate any kind of bond that would bind the two together much as the cursed sword had done to her daughter.

She needed something more, something concrete to help her decision along and her next question would either clinch it or send her running from the man once again. "What are your intentions for the cursed sword? Why are you searching for it?" She asked quietly, almost too quietly to be heard, though Shirou apparently had as he answered her.

"I've come to destroy Soul Edge." He spoke seriously, "I've spent my life helping others and I cannot stand what that sword is doing to this world." The hand that his crest was emblazoned on clenched tightly, fingernails drawing blood from his hand. "It needs to be destroyed, once and for all."

That settled it for the Athenian. She had been lonely, quietly waiting in her own little corner of hell, waiting for something to drop into her lap to either save her from the situation she'd found herself in or give her the means to do the same. This satisfied both conditions admirably.

"Speaking of which." The man spoke seriously. "I think it would be a good thing to remove that shard from your body as soon as possible."

Sophitia blinked for what felt like the dozenth time that minute. "You... you can do that?"

In response to that the faker held up a single hand and a small blade actualized into existence with a small sound of clashing metal, which caused a slight jump from the woman in front of him.

It was a curious thing really, it had no battle capability beyond perhaps a throwing knife, but it looked more like a barber's razor or a field knife that she had sometimes seen on a battlefield being employed by a surgeon to cut flesh quickly and easily.

And speaking of cutting flesh by the time the woman had realized it happening the warrior in front of her had already taken the blade to the side of his wrist, cutting into meat and bone like it wasn't even there.

The woman's eyes widened "What do you're think you're doing!" She all but yelled, leaping up from her sitting position, hoping beyond hope she could save the man before... he bled... out? Her hand was almost touching the limb when she noticed something strange. The wound... wasn't bleeding... As Shirou moved the blade away her eyes widened in shock as she saw the man's hand hanging limply, being held on by the outermost bone of his arm and a bit of flesh, but everything from there in was an open wound... that didn't bleed. Like magic it seemed. It was even more mystifying as the man brought the blade back over the wound, pushing the hand against the arm before sliding the flat of the blade along the seam of the cut, and like he was filling the hairline gap between two bricks with mortar the space between the wound seemed to mend and stitch themselves back together.

Shirou stared at the Athenian's gob smacked expression with a happy little smirk on his face. This was one of the few tools he had at his disposal to heal wounds and save lives passively. It was a mystic code he had picked up while touring Europe. Funnily enough the code was named Black Jack and was in the hands of a magus surgeon who was much like himself, he helped people and if that person was truly needful of his help he would cure them for free, a true hero, though his methods were a bit unorthodox.

The code itself had two key features, the first was the ability to cut through flesh and bone like it was hot butter while simultaneously projecting a bounded field that wouldn't allow blood to flow through the veins or arteries it had cut. This would normally be a bad thing as a limb could die in the meantime with no blood going to it. However, that was fixed by the second feature of the tool, the ability to seal any cut, no matter how deep, simply by sliding the flat of the blade across the tissue. Of course, there were a few things that the code couldn't do. It couldn't seal wounds that weren't physically connected to the flesh it was trying to mend, so if he was mending the skin above a wound it wouldn't heal the damaged organs underneath. To combat this he would have to go in and seal each and every organ before closing the outermost wound. Beyond that, the code also couldn't heal blunt force trauma or deep abrasions, only cuts and small punctures could be mended.

But really, that's all he needed this for. All he had to do was cut down to the shard, remove it while the bounded field was still up, then close the wound. In and out in less than a minute, easy peasy lemon squeezy.

That was something Sophitia picked up on quickly. A small grin found it's way on her lips. "You do realize that there are ancient customs that could consider this a marriage proposal right?"_**(**)**_

"Guh!" The faker flinched back like he'd been bit, falling back onto his rear and scooting away from the woman. He gulped loudly when he felt his back hit a tree.

Sophitia's grin grew as she watched how her teasing affected the poor man, her motions were like a predatory lion as she skulked over to him on her hands and knees.

"I think I might like the idea of feeling these emotions if it's for someone like you. Such a selfless man" One of her fingers found it's way under his chin as she pressed her body into his. Right now the crest on Shirou's hand was going bat shit insane, flashing prana up and down his arm like a rubber band. "I've always liked that, it's what drew me to my husband and it's what's drawing me to you. So tell me, , do you want to feel these feelings too?"

Shirou swallowed heavily again. It should be a crime that a face so innocent looking would have such devious and sexy side, it made his heart flutter and _'DAMMIT, KNOCK IT THE OFF YOU MAGIC INK-STAIN!' _ It really wasn't helping that the crest on his hand was throbbing to the beat of his already frantically beating heart.

"Ummm." Downing another lump in his throat, the man answered the only way he knew how when strong, partially psychotic women asked him for something. "Y-yes...?" He blamed Rin and Saber for this, blamed them with a passion. How in the Root he had convinced them to let him go he'd never understand. Right at this moment he was surprised that they hadn't followed him the moment he had left, threw a lasso over his head then dragged him kicking and screaming to the bedroom to "Explain" why running of on a suicidal self enlightenment quest was a terrible idea... a rather vigorous "Explanation" actually.

The woman's grin turned into a self satisfied little smirk. "Good. Then yes, I want to feel these emotions as well."

A small burning from his hand momentarily brought a gasp to Shirou's lips, though that gasp was smothered and buried under the soft lips of Sophitia as she pressed into him, causing the two of them to collapse into a bush right next to the tree, every once in a while a foot or a hand would visibly twitch as the bush shook.

While this was going neither of them noticed a small band of mystic symbols etch themselves on the woman's ring finger on her left hand or the small bit of prana that flowed through Shirou's lips into the woman's body.

_**-ooo-**_

Clapping could be heard, if there was anyone else within the pocket dimension they had now found themselves in.

Wizard Marshall Zelretch watched the two make out with a furious passion, his teeth gleaming in the unnatural rainbow light of his Kaleidoscope.

The clapping turned to maniacal hand rubbing as he laughed evilly. "So it begins, Muhuhuhahahahaa"

_**-ooo-**_

_***Starts humming another one bites the dust***_

_**Yep, I'm awesome, so al of you bask in my glory, BASK IN IT!**_

_**Ok enough dicking around. This chapter is a bit info dumpy in places, but this should be the only major moments of dump since I had to establish what the crest does and where it was from, which was a bit of a chore to be honest, but was easy enough once I got in the groove. **_

_**This chapter sort of just wrote itself rather quickly honestly, though I did have a few snags here and there, hope that doesn't make this any less interesting for you guys, because I had a lot of fun with this chapter. **_

_**(*) Used some numbers from the wiki and what I could remember from playing the game, if these numbers are wrong then could someone tell me the exacts so I can fix it? The conversion of Od and Mana to prana confuses the hell out of me since there's no defined chart or anything, and even then that doesn't take into account the quality of the magic circuits which throws any mathematical equation I can think of on it's head. If the numbers are close enough then just chock it up to artistic liberty. It sounds impressive at least, which was the whole point.**_

_**(**) Back in olden times, doing a great service or going out of you way to help a woman and or her family usually netted you a marriage to said woman out of gratitude. This wasn't a rule but could be easily forced on the hero if they weren't careful. I'm pretty sure there are several stories from ancient times that used this as a plot point.**_

_**Till next time**_

_**peace.**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**This chapter ended up being gigantic, I just couldn't find a place to stop so enjoy the massive chapter peoples, because I enjoyed writing it.**_

_**But ya'll are probably sick of me talking so lets skip the bullshit and get right to the nitty gritty then**_

_**Fic o the day: **_Dragon Summoning by LordsFire _**This. This is a REALLY good Familiar of Zero story, and it basically brings in the equivalent of a Space Marine who can wield Magitech and turns into a giant dragon. **_

_**Louise ends up getting turned into a dragon as well due to the Summoned warriors 'Magical Dragon Blood' fooling with the familiar contract. This spans like 90% of the fic and is a major plot point so be prepared for this because it's basically half the story and it reads better than it sounds, just trust me on this.**_

_**Song/vid of the day:**_ Faster than Light by Far Too Loud _**A good dubstep tune that I've been listening to on loop for that past couple of days.**_

_**Word/s of the day:**_ Destructo nookie _**Not really a unique word or words but the tvtropes page for that subject is amusing. Also relevant somewhat for this chapter...**_

_**Disclaimer: I dont own the Fate Franchise nor the Soul Franchise, I do however own a bag of Pretzels, which I happen to be nomming on now.**_

_**-ooo-**_

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

**"/Dark/evil creatures talking"**

_**"/Dark/evil creatures thinking"**_

_**-ooo-**_

_**Chapter 3: One Thing Lead to Another**_

Soft Athenian cloth swayed in Shirou's vision as he followed behind Sophitia. The fair skinned woman walked with a pronounced limp though her hips sashay 'd back and forth provocatively as she kept a few steps ahead of him. The thought of why that was the case had the Sword Magus who was admiring said woman's derriere grinning a wolfish grin.

Oh yeah, being a hero had it's perks and he was no longer the embarrassed little Shirou that had taken Saber and Rin to bed. He was older, still as innocent in some ways but bedding a women was not among them, though he was decidedly out of practice...

Sophitia glanced over her shoulder and flashed a self satisfied little smirk in his direction, batting her eyelashes at him and throwing a bit more hip into her walk.

Oh the little tease... Shirou shook his head mumbling something about him taking too much after Archers personality from his memories. Knowing that little look that the women had flashed him, he'd probably be getting more practice in later that day. The woman had been... yes she had been a bit more vigorous than he'd first assumed in her gratitude, even moreso after he'd removed that accursed gem from her chest. It was in the afterglow of their quick, dirty and needy romp that he had taken the thing from her, quickly going in while using his Structural Analysis to make sure he didn't hit anything important and stop blood flow to half her body. After he had removed the shard, the woman had shown her 'appreciation' of that act of heroism by showing him a few tricks she picked up as a married women.

Now Rin and Saber may have been great lovers and even greater partners but one was prudish and in Rin's case, a teenage girl who didn't have much experience.

This, he noted happily, watching the woman ahead of him continue her satisfied strut. This was a woman. A woman who had a decade of adventurous experience both inside _and _outside the bedroom.

Adventurous...

Yeah, he might not like how he had gotten into this situation, with the whole magical enchantment thing but he was beginning to think this Allure wasn't such a bad deal after all... Though it was a bit disconcerting that he was essentially tied at the hip to this woman and possibly any other women that came his way, only the fact that there was a magical contract involved, something that was completely reliant on the persons agreeing to and then signing it that put the man at ease. If they didn't want to be charmed during the magical contract portion of the magecraft then a simple no would have probably freed them from the crest's Allure. That thought made the Magus relax just a bit more in the long run but that still begged the question of what he was going to do now that he was with this women, or hell, any other women that didn't say no to him.

If Rin and Saber were here they'd have probably smacked him for even questioning this, it would be just like them... Saber would have smacked him because he was questioning his honor when all he really wanted to do was help Sophitia, like all the unfortunate people he came across. Rin... Rin would have probably smacked him one because he was questioning free, hot and kinky sex from a blonde bombshell. Hell, Rin would have probably taken it upon herself to tap that had he pushed the woman away... and then she would smack him again, call him a baka and walk off expecting him to follow her like a lost puppy or something... which he would have because he was just that damn gullible.

Sometimes being a Hero sucked...

A small hand trailed along the base of his spine and he realized that Sophitia had gotten much closer to him, apparently she had realized the effect she was having on him and wanted to do a bit more than that...That trailing hand dragged him over to the bushes by the roadside for a few more... intimate motions

Thirty minutes later and they were back on the road, both of their clothes disheveled and in Sophitia's case, her hair sticking out at odd angles.

And sometimes being a Hero was awesome...And magical harem crests were _amazing_!

It was only a few hours later that they found themselves in a small market town, buying supplies not only for Sophitia who had only had a few essentials with her but Shirou as well (who technically had none to begin with besides what he could trace into the real world) Food, water, camping supplies; all the essentials they needed were bought quickly and cheaply (read as free) via Shirou's Reinforcement of basic minerals into precious gems, a trick he picked up early on to pay for his traveling expenses. It was sad to think but being a hero actually _cost_ money. Just look at Batman for example, there was no way in hell that he'd made a single cent from his heroics and yet he probably spent billions of dollars on his gadgets and toy's.

And while Shirou didn't need science and money to power his abilities, he _did_ need money to buy supplies to just live normally, a fact that was all too common for everyone sadly.

Brushing those thoughts aside the two spent most of the day shopping and looking for a place to stay for the duration of their visit to the town. After the shopping was finished the two lovers (And that's exactly what they were despite the odd aspects of the relationship) settled down for the night. It wasn't much really, just an old Inn on the road leading out of the village but it was enough to last them through the night and allowed them to plan their next course of action. Of course, first on the list of to do's was freeing Sophitia's daughter from Soul Edge's corrupt grasp, not as easy of a thing as Shirou had thought it would be sadly.

The Athenian across from him had explained the defenses of Castle Ostrheinsburg and it was one of the more heady places he had ever had described to him. To put it bluntly, the place was a maze of traps and dead end corridors that funneled anyone trying to attack it into even _more_ traps.

And that didn't even cover the castles militia.

Eleven thousand Lizard-men. That was hard number to wrap your head around, but in the underground catacombs of the castle that was exactly what awaited anyone who tried to storm the gates, of that eleven thousand at least three thousand of them were constantly in war bands that harassed the countryside, making raids into neighboring King, Queen, Dukedoms and Duchies.

The nearest Lands, that of the Wolfkrone Kingdom were run by a Queen named Hildegard von Krone, an interesting name that meant 'protecting battle-maid' in old High German and was a name of great magical significance throughout history, being claimed by several notable individuals, among who two stood out above the rest. One, a Hildegard of Bingen. A Christian Mystic and a powerful Magus of the church, comparable to Merlin and other Magi of the time.

Another important woman who claimed the name was Hildegard of Vinzgouw, the second wife of Charlemagne and a powerful magi in her own right. She also gave birth to many notable Magi that would one day start up some of the more renowned magus families in recent times, so her name was well regarded in the history books of the magi world... at at least the one of his home world.

Names were important in his world and they usually carried a magic all their own, so he would be wary of the Queen of Wolfkrone, if for nothing else than to at least plan for something. Really, they hadn't gotten anywhere in their plans to get past the lizard-man army that Soul Edge controlled. They'd honestly only come up with two options, both of which were rudimentary at best.

Option one, sneak in. That was a daunting process as Nightmare would probably sick the collective thousands of his army on them before they could even get close to the castle and the roving bands of lizard soldiers made stealth near impossible.

Option Two, use overwhelming force to break through and just strong arm their way in. Another daunting task as they didn't have an army to fight against the tides of green scaled soldiers and Shirou sure as hell wasn't breaking out any army killer noble phantasms to even the playing field, he was crazy and borderline suicidal, not stupid. Something that could kill that many creatures would probably suck every ounce of Prana he could make from his body and the air around him, killing him in a very horrible fashion if he wasn't careful.

Still, that didn't mean that wasn't an option... no! Bad Shirou, must not think suicidal thoughts while in the arms of a beautiful blonde woman who you plan on ravishing. Speaking of which, Shirou locked eyes with the women next to him, noting the perverted little grin she had on her lips... before a face full of large bouncy breasts hit him. He could only mutter something along the lines that It was always the pure, innocent and quiet ones. The next moment found the woman pinning the Sword magus to the bed and locking lips with him, doing her utmost to rip his clothing off and mount him where he lay.

Ravishing was an appropriate term for what was happening... but the one who was doing the ravishing was up for debate... actually, no it wasn't. Shirou was the bottom and he couldn't be assed to care right now with an eyecatchingly beautiful woman riding him like she stole him, which was funny because technically speaking, he stole her...

_**-ooo-**_

Morning came quickly enough, though a bit too quickly for the two bed shakers as the morning sunlight roused them from each others warm embrace.

Now that had been a fresh experience for the Emiya, namely waking up with a beautiful, loving and most importantly of all _naked_ women in his arms. The last time that had happened was right before he had left on his journey.

After another twenty minutes of cuddling, the two made their way out of the village, headed for another of the small towns along the border of Wolfkrone and Ostrheinsburg. It was during their little trek that they realized they were being followed by someone from the previous town, whom and for what reason they couldn't discern but they weren't going to stick around to find out. Picking up speed, the two ran for the next nearest town, hoping that whoever or whatever was behind them would lose their trail, only to come to the sobering conclusion that they were being herded towards the town that they had chosen for their next destination. It was easy to tell, every time they would lose their pursuers another set would pop up and force them in the direction of the town, it was late in the afternoon when the constant bottlenecking forced them to the front gates of the place where they found a small company of soldiers, roughly twenty-five in all waiting for them.

At the head of the group was a woman, a woman of obscene beauty, much like Sophitia's own. She was young, perhaps eighteen at most with auburn hair, royal and fair features, twin bronze gemstones for eyes and full lips that gave the woman a pouty expression even when she seemed deadly serious. There was also a small beauty mark below and to the left of her lips that drew the eye, a small imperfection that only gave the woman a more exotic look.

Blinking once to shake those thoughts out of his head, he instead focused on what the warrioress armed and armored herself with. The first and most glaring thing he noted was the half-plate armor with red and black under clothes that covered a good potion of her body. The armor itself was riddled with niches in which he could slip a sword blade and her crotch was unarmored to allow for full range of movement, however the woman held herself in such a way as to show that those weak points were likely not weak points at all and she had the skill and ability to block whatever was thrown at her.

Aside from the blatant display of confidence, he also noted how extravagant the armor was as the bright metal showed off a motif of snarling wolves on the woman's right pauldron, her helm and the crest on her waist which acted as a belt. Moving on, the magus used a bit of structural analysis to understand her weaponry in full, which appeared to be a short and wide silver blade with spiraling cross guards that sat comfortably on her left hip while the other was a crimson parade ground lance over a foot an a half longer than she was tall, complete with a banner which depicted a wolf howling at a full moon with a flower of some sort resting underneath it. It was the banner of Wolfkrone, obviously, the wolf motif on the woman's armor and the symbol on the flag kind of gave it away.

But the real question, who was the this woman? And just why did she have her men herd them to this village. A sinking feeling was beginning to form in the pit of his stomach as the warrioress in front of him stepped forward, her commanding presence tipping off the blade user to who exactly he was dealing with.

A queen, or at least a ruler of some sort and the only ruler of Wolfkrone was Hildegard von Krone herself.

"Well, well, well." The queen frowned. "What do we have here?" She approached Shirou and Sophitia, a scowl forming on her face. "When I heard that you were in one of my villages." her voice drawled out, staring at Sophitia intently. "I assumed you would be the first of a wave of Lizard-men and that my town would be raised to the ground." A moment of silence passed between the gathering of soldiers, as the queen and Sophitia stared each other down, neither giving an inch. This would have continued longer had Hildegard not spoken up, breaking the lock. "I am Queen Hildegard von Krone, the ruler of these lands. Now tell me, I ask, why I shouldn't cut you down were you stand?"

And that was when Shirou decided he'd butt his self righteous head into the matter and stand between the two feuding women.

"Well..." The sword user spoke up, putting his surprisingly large bulk between the two glaring women, the brunette shifting her icy gaze from Sophitia to his own. Ignoring the glare the magus continued. "For one, I wouldn't allow you to do that." He let loose one of his trademark and patented smiles, the dopey kind of smile that you'd see from a class clown or idiot hero.

Hildegard blinked, then blinked again before bursting out into a fit of laughter, the two dozen men behind her joining in on the woman's mirth. After the noise died down the warioress drew her short sword and pointed it at Shirou. "You are even more foolish looking than I assumed." Her former mirth being replaced with a snarl. "Why should I fear any attempts to stop me? What could you possibly do to stop a force of fifty men?" From behind the pair another twenty-five soldiers appeared from the forest surrounding the town and formed a half circle around the two, boxing them against Hildegard and her main force. "You are surrounded, outnumbered and outmatched. Give up peacefully and we'll make your deaths quick."

Normally, this would be the point that many a lesser man would have given up in the face of the inevitable, or perhaps even holding thoughts of taking down as many as he could until he was cut down. Shirou did neither of these things, instead his eyes hardened, turning into dagger sharp points set into his tanned skin. He lived to defend people and right now Sophitia was in danger on all sides, his life meant little in the battle which was to come, all he wanted was for her to be safe.

Hildegard took a step back from the intensity of Shirou's gaze, it was like watching a switch being flipped and night turning to day. A simple tensing of muscles, a change in breathing, the cold look to his eyes. It was the preparations of a warrior, one who had fought countless battles and had survived every one of them.

And then she heard him speak.

"_I am the bone of my sword_"

The sound of his voice sent a shudder through the woman's spine as she heard the sound reverberate in the trees around them.

Shirou grit his teeth as he chanted the first line of Unlimited Blade Works, it was always rough having to pin down a large group of warriors when all you could really use were swords, so to remedy that he had come up with a short hand to give him a bit more power and consistency to his magecraft. By performing a partial chant he cut down the cost of his projections and increased the quality, going up for each line until his Reality Marble was actualized. Right now he only needed the first line to bring forth a dozen or more massive broadswords, each nameless but twice as wide and tall as a fully grown human with only a long, thick handle to heft the weapon by and bury them in a vaguely circle like shape around Hildegard's main force. Then, two dozen more of the same nameless blades appeared in the air in front of Sophitia, slamming down around the force of men she had been facing, back to back with him, preparing to defend herself against the soldiers in front of her.

"You asked why you should fear me?" Shirou asked casually, now alone except for himself, Sophitia, Hildegard and two other soldiers who had managed to escape his trap. Kanshou and Bakuya appeared in his hands, their appearance marked by a sound of clashing metal, much like the sound the other nameless blades had made. "This, is why." His eyes narrowed, another dozen nameless blades appearing behind him, types ranging from daggers and sabers, to flambergs and short swords.

And every single one of them were pointing in the queens general direction.

Hildegard felt a trickle of sweat roll down her back underneath her armor and a very cold chill passed down her spine. She was all but alone now that her soldiers were trapped, a cursory glance at the blades keeping them that way showed that they were at least a half a foot thick and taller than any of her men could even begin to climb.

Now she was trapped in a ring of steel, only two other soldiers available to her and they would be no match for the Athenian menace that she had to contend with since nearly her first day in power. The mere thought of such a nuisance brought a snarl to the woman's face. "Why? Why would someone as powerful as you protect someone like her?"

Shirou's face screwed up in confusion. "Why? Why wouldn't I protect her?"

"Because she's a murderer!" Hildegard spat, lowering her parade spear in Sophitia's direction. "For more than a year the bitch has been roaming the wastes between my lands and Ostrheinsburg slaughtering anyone who get's close, between her, the Lizard-men and the other corrupt servants of Soul Edge I've lost over a dozen towns and villages and more soldiers and civilians than I can count in this bloody conflict."

Shirou felt Sophitia tense behind him, a slight tremble rocking her body as she leaned against him for support. So it was true then, not like he wasn't aware of what Sophitia had been doing, hell she had nearly done the same to him during their first meeting. However, the reasons the woman did what she did set her apart from a simple murderer, so instead of turning on Sophitia like Hildegard expected him to, Shirou instead shook his head sadly at the queen in front of him. "I was aware of what she had done, just not how many she has killed. Regardless, I will still protect her."

"Why?" She snarled. "Are you a servant of evil like she? Did she corrupt you to the side of evil or are you just too stupid to care?"

The magus snorted in amusement at that last option. "While several people would consider me the latter, I have my reasons." Shirou's eyes bored into Hildegard's own. "Do you know why Sophitia served Soul Edge?"

"Why should I know the reasons of scum?" The woman glowered back, inching away from the magus' stony gaze.

Shirou bowed his head slightly, an acquiescence to her point, "A good enough reason not to know, but opinions are always biased." Shirou's head rose, a questioning look on his brow. "Do you have any family, your majesty?" The woman opened her mouth to shout about why that would matter when Shirou's mouth traced a fine like across his face in impatience. "Just answer the question."

"Yes." She responded instantly, though the look of minor surprise tipped Shirou off that his Crest was doing it's job, convincing the woman to trust him to some extent. "I have a father" She responded uneasily, a slight tremor in her voice as if the memory brought out bad feelings. "Though the man was driven mad by Soul Edge and is locked away for the rest of his days."

Oh... well that sucks...

Shirou nodded, content to know the woman's reasons for hating Soul Edge. He had a feeling that the woman's righteous fury was directed not at Sophitia but at Soul Edge itself and the impatience she had towards him spoke of unease around the subject, a defensive measure to combat the sadness she held for her father's fate. It was a common occurrence really. 'Great evil artifact corrupts a family member and then the immediate family has to deal with them, usually leaving a mental scar and a hatred for anything related to the evil artifact that caused it.' And now she was lashing out at everything even remotely evil because she couldn't vent her frustrations out on the accursed sword that had wronged her in the first place. A viscous cycle really and like the old saying goes 'An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.'

Time to douse some of those flames. "Sophitia has family too." Shirou spoke smoothly, the tone of his voice softly chiding the queens rage. "She had a husband and son, murdered by a servant of Soul Edge. She also has a daughter that was kidnapped by that same servant and held in bondage by the sword's will. If soul edge is destroyed, so too will her daughters life be destroyed." Everything was quiet for a moment, even the soldiers on the other side of the swords were quiet as they digested that bit of information. "She's been serving the sword to preserve the life of her daughter, all the while searching for a way to break her bondage." He twitched Kanshou and Bakuya slightly to point over his shoulder at Sophitia. "She found that means through me which is why she's following me and not the other way around like you're assuming."

Hildegard stared at Shirou for a moment, her eyes flicking from him to Sophitia, an unreadable expression on her face as she lowered her sword while a the same time planting the butt of her spear in the ground. "Even if that was the case." She spoke, her voice far more calm and composed than before. "That doesn't excuse her actions in killing my men and innocent civilians."

A nod of the head was the only response to her words that she received. "That would normally be the case." He dipped a hand into his cloak, a garment made from the holy Shroud of Martin, a relic that he had liberated from the corrupt Kirei Kotomine when Lancer had finally put an end to the man, the garment was found hidden in the church that he had been priest for. The shroud itself could seal away event's, stopping the corrupting influence of anything that it was encased in and stopping the corruption from spreading. From within one of the many pockets of that shroud Shirou drew forth a small blackish red metal fragment.

As soon as the fragment hit the air Hildegard backed away with a hiss, the back of her sword hand coming up to cover her mouth and the spear in her hand waved warily in Shirou's direction, warding away the foul black miasma that the shard exuded.

"However, after I fought and defeated Sophitia-san I was able to remove this fragment of Soul Edge from her body, a fragment that was dangerously close to the woman's heart, a fragment which was subtly controlling her actions and forcing her to do what she did." That was a bald faced lie and Shirou knew it, however he was trying to give Sophitia a second chance so that the von Krone wouldn't keep hunting her or by extension him since he was now her lover. "With the shard removed she is now fully in control of herself and is no longer a threat to you or your military, within reason of course." It was times like these that Shirou was glad that he had Archer's silver tongue, that man could bullshit his way through anything if given the chance, a byproduct of his long life of talking down threats. A skill which Shirou had doubled up on in his own life experiences to where he could lie through his teeth in front of a magus using a lie detecting magecraft and get away with it.

The queen's shoulders slumped imperceptibly as that information sunk in. It was one thing to have a face attached to your enemy but when you humanized that threat, gave it a human name and motivation then it was that much harder to hate something with as much passion as you used to. For Hildegard, it was a rather trying event to effectively drop her hatred of a woman who had killed her comrades, even if it wasn't while she was fully under control of her own body.

"I still can't forgive her." Hildegard spoke through gritted teeth.

And then there were the people who held a grudge just because they were stubborn asses.

"Her body killed more of my comrades than I care to mention." A frown appeared on the queen's face. "And it is that body that I hold responsible, the mind may be innocent but the flesh is not."

Oh how many ways that could be turned into something dirty... Mentally slapping himself, Shirou held up his twin, reverse colored swords and prepared for an attack. "And just what do you plan on doing then? I have your men contained and you don't have a chance in hell killing her when I'm here to protect her."

The butt end of Hilde's spear slammed into the ground. "If that is the case, then I challenge the woman to a duel."

Shirou froze for a moment as the words echoed around the metallic walls of his defensive prisons. Then, slowly, the hand holding Kanshou rose to his ear and the pinky holding said blade was stuck in the orifice. A gentle twist and a light pop later and the man was staring at Hilde incredulously. "I'm sorry, It seems that I had some crazy stuck in my ear, care to repeat that?"

"A duel." The queen repeated. "I will not have my vengeance taken from me so easily, this woman has been nothing but a slight against my rule since I took up the mantle of queen, a duel is therefore required by the rules of chivalry. Or are you an honorless cur to deny me this?"

Oh dammit... a tactical strike to his honor bone, this woman was merciless... A small grunt of frustration passed through Shirou's lips. He was trained by saber to respect the honor of other warriors and he himself followed a strict code of honor as well, if he didn't allow her to fight Sophitia then he would be breaking at least seven rules of conduct of the Code of Chivalry, something he was reluctant to do.

And it wasn't like he could take her place. A duel was between the instigator and the chosen. There were times when you could allow another to take your place but such things were usually mirrored by the other party as well. Hilde sure as hell wasn't going to elect a champion or regent to take her place and Sophitia wasn't going to back down from a challenge either. He could almost feel the woman's blood race through her skin as she still had her back to his. Ugh this sucked, if he wasn't such a hero then he'd have just stabbed the pompous warrioress and would have been done with it.

But, he was a hero. So, like the hero he was, he knew when to stand down on matters of honor even if he didn't like it. Stepping to the side the man allowed Sophitia to face the Queen of Wolfkrone directly but not before slipping the woman a quick kiss and a muttered 'good luck' Neither feeling the slight drain and increase in the others Od, nor did either notice the slight glow from behind Sophitia's shield as the tattoo on her ring finger glowed a dull neon green.

Sophitia stepped forward, her shield at the ready and her sword glowing dimly in the evening light as she hopped lightly back and forth, "The name's Sophitia's Alexandra and I'm not going to back down from a challenge."

Hilde smirked, holding her blade comfortably at her side. "Hildegard von Krone, I wouldn't expect you to and neither will I." The lower portion of her spear rose up to rest comfortably under her left arm, much like a jouster would hold the weapon.

Shirou just groaned from the sidelines, now was not the time to have a catfight, though he did release the swords holding Hilde's men so they could at least cheer their queen on, he wasn't _that_ much of a dick to deny them that and he was sure that the men wouldn't attempt to impede their queens duel.

The two women circled each other, their eyes never once leaving the others as their wills battled for supremacy.

Hilde made the first move as her spear lanced out, clanging loudly against Sophitia's shield as it was brought up to block. The next blow came from Sophitia as she she stepped in twice to bring her within sword range, the two women's sword blades met as they pushed against each other. The clench was broken when the Athenian slammed her shield against Hilde's chest, knocking the woman onto her back. Sophitia leapt forward to slam her blade into the queens stomach but missed as the von Krone rolled to the side allowing the gutting wound to dig harmlessly into the dirt.

Hilde was up in a flash despite the hindrance of her armor and was preparing to stab the tip of her spear through Sophitia's stomach. Sophitia dodged the attack at the last moment, sliding to the side while bringing her shield up, allowing the point to skip across to blue metal surface with a harsh screech and slight sparking.

"Haaah!" Sophitia's blade came in underhanded as she struck toward the unarmored thighs and crotch of Hilde's armor, hoping to score a debilitating strike, the strike came up short as Hilde used her own blade to swat the offending weapon away, allowing the sharp thing to bounce harmlessly off her outer thigh guard.

"You'll have to do better than that." Hilde grinned, actually enjoying the little duel so far.

Sophitia ducked under the queen's spear as it swiped at her head. "And you'll have to speed up a bit to catch me." She was also grinning like a loon as their sword blades met once again.

On the sidelines Shirou rolled his eyes, now they were smack talking, this was definitely a catfight except they were using sharpened metal instead of their claws to get their 'point' across. The magus winced slightly as he witnessed his Athenian lover take a blow to the ribs from the thick wooden handle of Hilde's spear. "Be careful dammit." He whispered under his breath. "Use your damn shield and out pace her, she'll tire faster than you will in that heavy armor."

As if to counter that very argument the Athenian bombshell that gave great he- messages, took a glancing blow from the blade portion of Hilde's spear. It was a slight nick in the grand scheme of things but it was a nick on the outer thigh of her lead leg, which would slow her down and exhaust her quicker than normal.

A fact which readily became apparent as similar smaller wounds showed up on the blonde's skin through the continued cherry tapping Hilde was employing. It was one thing to wear leather armor, it was entirely another to wear what amounted to a silk dress, a dress that barely had any armoring at all. Compared to Hilde's full body armor it was a hard press for his lover to score any direct damage. Sure, she had struck a blow to the queen's sword arm through one of the slits in the inner elbow which stopped her from using said weapon, but Hilde made up for that by sheathing the blade and using both hands on her spear like a staff, which kept the weakened and decidedly slower blonde away from her.

Shirou meanwhile was standing with his arms crossed, his left hand gripping his right arm so tightly that you could hear the bones in his fingers pop. It was during this that he noticed the death blow coming. Sophitia was weakened, she likely wouldn't have enough strength to block the next strike and it would likely stab a hole through her torso, piercing her liver and perhaps slicing a lung in the process. It was going to be a grisly wound but something that cound be mended with Black Jack if Hilde was decent enough to know when she had won. He could stand to see the woman he was bonded with take a possibly lethal hit, it was something entirely different if Hilde's poor sportsmanship made her cut off Sophitia head while she was down. That was something Black Jack couldn't fix and if she tried anything like that then Shirou would bring the full might of his Reality Marble down upon her head and fuck the prana cost. The attack came and Shirou closed his eyes, he didn't want to see it happen, it would only make him want to strike Hilde down.

That's when it happened, instead of the sound of metal piercing flesh, there was instead a sound of metal striking what sounded like glass and grinding across it's surface instead of cracking or breaking it.

"Rho Aias!" Shirou's eyes flew wide at the name Sophitia called out. A single pinkish purple petal of the mythical Shield of Ajax appeared in front of Sophitia's hand, her original shield discarded to the side to allow her to use the other one. From his place on the side lines he could make out a single neon green magic circuit wrapped around her ring finger on her left hand.

She was channeling prana into tracing, how? A slight burning took his eyes away from the battle to see a single magic circuit active on his crest, the line of prana running down his arm to reach out across the empty air to connect to Sophitia. She was using his crest as a medium!? Just how the hell was that possible!? Using Structural Analysis on the crest brought forth a shocking realization. The crest now had fifty-nine activatable circuits, the band on the Athenian's finger was actually a physical connection to his Crest, how...?

The magical contract, he noted numbly. He had never figured out exactly what it did but now he knew, he didn't just bind her to him in an emotional sense, but a physical and spiritual sense as well. She was now keyed into his very soul through his alternate self's crest which allowed her to tap into his magic circuits and by extension his reality marble, conjuring forth a weapon from his mental arsenal that most fit the girls nature. That was a sobering thought, though not entirely unexpected given the circumstances. Pulling his mind away from the surprising revelation he found Hilde on her back with Sophitia standing over her, her sword at the von Krone's neck.

"I win." The Athenian smiled smugly, having won the catfight turned deathmatch. She slowly removed the blade from the woman's throat, sparing her when Hilde probably wouldn't have, showing exactly how in control of her actions the now Ex servant of Soul Edge was. Sophitia extended her hand, allowing the other woman to grasp it.

"So it seem's" Hilde nodded simply, taking the offered hand reluctantly and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. "With you besting me I must honor the unspoken agreement of dueling and forgive you of your actions." A small frown appeared upon her lips. "I loathe the thought of it but I was bested fairly, it was a good fight."

Shirou thought it was a good idea not to mention that Sophitia was siphoning magical potential from the crest on his hand and kept his trap shut while the two women found a common ground, namely discussion Shirou himself.

Hildegard glanced over at the blade user for a moment before turning to Sophitia. "I will be frank, I still don't trust you but that man over there seems to trust you enough to keep you at his side and he is at least honorable enough to allow me to duel you even though he could have easily killed me at any point." her lips flattened out into a thin line. "He spoke of you freeing your daughter from Soul Edge's grasp, how? Do you plan to storm the castle by yourselves?"

Sophitia glanced over at Shirou at that question, who in turn was staring at them intently, if she didn't know any better she'd have thought he could hear them way over here.

Shirou _could_ hear them way over there but he wasn't going to tell them that.

"Well." Sophitia fidgeted nervously. "We were actually still planning how to get into the castle, so far we've planned to either sneak in or assault the castle directly."

Hildegard snorted. "I've tried for months to assault Ostrheinsburg, every time a greater force of lizard men led by Soul Edge's minions rout my forces and push us back to our borders before pulling back. Something you should be quite familiar with" The queen shot her a dirty look and shook her head. "And I doubt you could sneak in with that many of those creatures keeping watch."

Sophitia sighed. "That's what we assumed. Shirou is powerful, frighteningly so but even he can't fight an army of thousands."

Well he kind of could if they were normal soldiers but it would probably kill him afterwords, not that the man was going to say that aloud.

"Frighteningly powerful...?" Hilde looked between Sophitia and Shirou for a moment, before nodding slowly. Yes, the swords the man spirited from wherever he had gotten them from showed that he was an extremely powerful warrior and just the way he held himself spoke volumes of that fact. If he could easily overpower more than two and a half score men, then... The gears in the von Krone's mind were whirring at full speed as she stared at Shirou over her shoulder. Unknown to her but even though she had only really battled Sophitia, the crest on Shirou's hand had activated for several moments when he had trapped her men, sending a concentrated blast of Allure her way, only her Royal upbringing and the fact that all royalty was somewhat immune to magic allowed her to resist, Her royal blood blocking the magic on a C-Rank level due to ancient stories that depicted royalty as such, yet another phantasmal quality shared by noble warriors alongside a knight's oath and the royal gaze.

Yet it was enough to get the woman interested, more than that she was a very pragmatic woman and knew when a tactical advantage was given to her on a silver platter.

"I might have a solution to your troubles." Hilde spoke slowly.

"Really?" Sophitia's eyebrows rose for a moment in surprise, confused as to why the woman who practically hated her guts not an hour before would be so willing to help them.

Then she noted a slight blush on the woman's cheeks when she stared at Shirou and a perverse little glint appeared in the Athenian's eye. Apparently the crest loosened the inhibitions of those it held under contract as Sophitia got a bit closer to Hilde than she should have been comfortable with.

"W-what are you doing?" The queen tried backing away from the woman but only got as far as a foot or so before the Athenian's hand reached out and grabbed one of her arms, pulling her closer.

"Why don't you tell me all about it." Sophitia purred in Hilde's ear, bringing a shudder from the von Krone. "Perhaps we can ask Shirou for his opinion, he's quite skilled with all _sorts _of blades after all."

A loud smacking sound came from across the field as Shirou facepalmed, muttering something suspiciously like 'she did not just say that' though the two women were oblivious to it as Hildegard was sputtering in embarrassment.

"Or maybe you prefer _other weapons_?" She stressed her point by pressing her body against the sputtering queen, a single hand coming around to grope the queen's rear under her armor.

All around them the jaws of men (And several women in the case of Hilde's soldiers) dropped. Shirou's gob smacked expression highly amusing to anyone who was actually paying attention to him (Which would be no one)

Hildegard's face broke out in a luminescent blush as Shirou's crest continued to work it's magic through Sophitia's actions, neither noticing the single magic circuit on the Athenian's finger glowing like the sun while said hand caressed said woman's backside.

So caught up in the spectacle that Shirou didn't notice the tell tale feeling of a magical contract forming.

"W-well, I suppose I could agree to that, he is an honorable person after all." Hilde, stuttered out slightly as the other woman's assets pressed into one of her arms, the softness being felt through the opened points in the armor.

A feral grin formed on Sophitia's face. She turned and gave Shirou a pointed look. "Come here lover, we need an experienced _swordsman _for our discussion." That innocent yet sultry look brooked no argument from the Sword magus as he gulped slightly and hurried to her side.

_'Just who is following who again?' _ Was the thoughts of several of the soldiers surrounding the trio.

"So how about it Shirou, will you take up Hildegard on her offer?" Oh she wasn't leading the conversation at all...

And like the idiot he was, Shirou didn't think to question the _exact_ wording Sophitia used. "Y-yes." He agreed quickly to the woman's commanding gaze which reminded him entirely too much of Rin's.

Sophitia's grin widened in a contented look as she grabbed Shirou's arm and pulled him roughly into the pair of women, in the process accidentally locking his lips with the monarch in the Athenian's grasp.

Light flared up as another of Shirou's Magic circuit's went dim and a runic symbol etched itself on Hilde's ring finger on her left hand, which then lit up as a single glowing green line sprung to life and a moderate amount of prana escaped Shirou's lips and entered Hildegard.

The emotionally confused monarch drank from Shirou's Od like a woman possessed, when the transfer was done their lips still hadn't moved from their position and it was becoming somewhat uncomfortable for the soldiers around them.

Finally after almost two minutes of frantic face sucking the two separated, both gasping for breath as they gave each other a measuring look, though Shirou's gaze flicked to Sophitia a moment, a withering expression on his face. "You did that on purpose." He grunted in her direction, slightly annoyed as he felt the contract settling into his body as another woman was subverted under the contracts influence.

Sophitia pouted though a small tilt to one of her lips showed she was smirking at him. "I only sped things along, she was already reacting and I could tell she was going to fall to your charms eventually."

The magus glowered. "You still could have mentioned it to me."

"What's this about a reaction?" Hilde interrupted the two, getting ever so slightly closer to Shirou in the process.

"I'll explain later." Shirou sighed. "Suffice it to say that we're now connected, body, mind and soul through a magic which Sophitia knowingly had me initiate while I was...indisposed." Really, how else could you describe the spectacle of two women pressing their sexy bodies against each other? _Intentionally even_!

Hilde's expression darkened as she shot Sophitia a glare, that only seemed to widen the smirk on the Athenian.

"I wasn't kidding when I said he was a great _swordsman_, and he has the _stamina_ to last an entire _night_ of _battle_ if so desired."

Shirou swallowed, gaping ever so slightly that Sophitia would so blatantly reveal their sex life, though that wasn't that hidden to begin with, seeing as Sophitia was something of a screamer... now he sort of felt bad for the other patrons of that Inn that had slept at...

Hilde gawked at the Athenian's blatant promiscuity before turning an appraising eye on Shirou. "A whole night you say?"

Shirou's jaw dropped comically. He was surrounded by vixens, vixens one and all dammit!

"Yep." Sophitia replied happily, giddy that she now had the queens interest, now for the finishing blow. "He's also an experienced _bowman_, so good with his _fingers_, he can pluck at all the right _strings_"

Ok, now this was just getting silly.

"Hmm." Hilde murmured in quiet approval. "I think I will see if these _battle _skills are as developed as you say... among other things" If Shirou didn't know any better he could have sworn he saw Hilde's tongue peek out for a moment to wet her lips, whether that had to do with the fact that her lips were dry or she was anticipating something was up for debate.

Actually, no it wasn't. She was planning to do things to him, many things, hopefully many _good _things.

"Oh you don't have to worry about that." The Athenian quipped. "And I can assure you he carries more than a dagger on his person."

And you're not helping this matter any!

"Hmm, we'll see." The von Krone grabbed Shirou's wrist and dragged him back within the town where the main force of her soldiers were stationed, pulling him past the surprised faces of several hundred of her soldiers as the queen dragged him to a nearby Inn that she had commissioned from the town's people for her stay. "We shall not be disturbed," Was the order she gave her men before she turned to Sophitia to beckon her inside with a glance. "You may join us, I might need assistance in determining his _sword skill_."

The Athenian's smirk split her face from ear to ear as she rushed in behind the pair, laughing all the while.

Hilde's troops watched the trio enter the Inn with a mixture of shock, awe (That the lucky bastard, whoever he was, had gotten to bed not only their queen but another beautiful woman as well.) And jealousy (For all the aforementioned reasons.)

And then there was a bit of embarrassment as muffled grunts and moans escaped the not-so-soundproof walls.

Many of the male soldiers turned to give their female comrades and a few of the female villagers a questioning look. More than a few of the women shrugged their shoulders, before grabbing said men and dragging them off to somewhere private. Hey, being a soldier is stressful business and more than one couple would be relieving a good portion of that stress before the day was through.

_**-ooo-**_

"You're evil you know that?" Zelretch stared up at the empty ceiling, as he munched casually on a bowl of popcorn.

_**(A/N Not as evil as you are you crazy bastard)**_

The vampire held up a finger "Good point! Though what's with him bagging and tagging Hildegard so quickly, I thought that queen was as frigid as that Ivy woman?"

_**(A/N Eh, blame it on whimsy, I was going to have her as a bitter antagonist that would use both Shirou and Sophitia like a tool (Though I might still do that to some degree) before either discarding them or falling under Shirou's magical wiles... But then I remembered that this was a crack harem comedy with story and I was like "FUCK! THAT!") **_

**(A/N Still, you have a point, that was a bit quick, if you want to blame it on something, blame it on hot bi-sexual Sophie and her magical boobs of awesome. They solve all world problems... actually boobs in general solve all world problems, if only people would realize this sooner...)**

"And people call me crazy..." The user of the second magic snickered as he took a sip of a soda that was magically floating in midair, as scenes from the bedroom Shirou, Hilde and Sophie shared flashed across the theatre screen that happened to be set up in the multi colored void between dimensions. "And how is this threesome relevant?"

_**(A/N Threesomes are always relevant)**_

"Fair enough." The magus conceded to my point. "Got anything else planned? I'm curious about those crest rings of yours, just how many women are there going to be if there's sixty magic circuits in the thing? And how do they work?"

_**(A/N No, don't even go there. There is NOT going to be a woman per magic circuit, that is ridiculous number and even I'm not going to go that far. Six women, that's what I said last chapter, it's the magic number, one tenth of Shirou's magic crest, for reasons that are my own right now.) **_

_**(A/N As for the magic circuits, they aren't removed and placed into the women's bodies, it's more like Shirou's are both inactive and active at the same time. Inactive for him and active for the woman who's connected to him, which will allow them to use one weapon from Shirou's reality marble.) **_

"Ooo oo oo!" Zelretch raised his hand like a child wanting to get the attention of a teacher. "Can I suggest a few things? I know of some great Noble Phantasms that those ladies can use, and it would be amusing!"

_**(A/N Nah, I've already mostly decided on this so I probably won't be taking suggestions for canon weapons, though I MIGHT be willing to use noncanon or OC weapons as long as they are reasonable and fit the women that are using them. Namely that they fit the women's weapon style and overall demeanor. They also have to be based on mythology or mythos in general, though some fictional mythology like the noble phantasms of the Frankenstein's Monster and Jack the Ripper servants from Fate/Apocrypha are acceptable, the thing that would come to mind for something like that would be along the lines of Alan Quatermaine as an Archer and his trusty rifle being his Noble Phantasm, thing's like that. Speaking of which, that would make an interesting story in and of itself, Shirou summoning Quatermaine or some other 19th-20th century heroic spirit) **_

_**(A/N But enough about that, so far I have Rho Aias for Sophitia and I'm contemplating Gae Bolg for Hilde, though I'm also contemplating the other two Gae spears of Diarmuid**_.

"That's silly." Zelretch pouted.

_**(A/N That's vision you jackass, I'm doing things other people haven't done before!)**_

"Your vision is idiotic" he growled back. "How exactly would you explain how all that works? The Nasuverse fandom are like rabid dogs when it comes to their lore, so tell me HOW you're going to fully explain all the minor errors in continuity?"

_**(A/N ...A wizard did it.)**_

...

"You did not just say that..." Zelretch actually sounded appalled that I had used something so ridiculous to explain myself. "Fuck yeah I'm appalled you jackass!"

_**(A/N Do you WANT me to go Hulk on your vampiric ass again?"**_

"No thanks." He sighed, turning back to the theatre screen to grab another handful of popcorn. " I may be able to travel between dimensions but I can't control them like you can control this one."

_**(A/N And don't you forget it! ... now pass me some of that popcorn...)**_

"Here." He tossed a bowl up into the air, the bowl disappearing when it reached the peak of it's flight.

_**(A/N Thanks... should we tell the audience 'till next time' or 'ciao' Like I usually do? That kind of gets boring after awhile.)**_

"Eh, they probably don't even care about that, though they and I appreciate what you're doing... even if you are an insufferable ass."

_**(A/N How polite of you...)**_

"You know as well as anyone that I'm sophisticated as hell."

_**(A/N Like a sir?)**_

"Indeed"

_**(A/N Quite... I'll just say it anyway. Till next time peoples. Read and Review, it helps motivate me!)**_

"Sell out"

_**(A/N Sparkly Vampire.)**_

"That was one time, ONE TIME! And I did get that fairy back after he knocked up that Bella woman..."

_**(A/N What even possessed you to go to the Twilight Universe to begin with?)**_

"I wanted to see if they really did excrete rainbows and glitter from their rear ends, my good buddy Alucard mentioned something like that when I last met him."

_**(A/N You really need to stop going to Abridged universes, they will fuck with your sanity.)**_

"You still have sanity?"

_**(A/N ...Annnnyway, you heard me before my adoring fans, read & review and I'll have another chapter of 'A Tale of Souls, Swords and' whenever I can find the time. I'm also working hard on Itachi:Familiar of Zero, so you can see that chapter out soon too.**_

"Jackass"

_**(A/N Cock monkey)**_

"Oh real original... though that does remind me of a story about a bridge."

_**A/N Oh hell no! Cut, cuuuut cuuuuuu-) *Call lost***_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Let's get this party started off right, with some celebration of a new chapter and an apology for taking so damn long. Life (among other things) Like I've said before, has a habit of pissing on me. one of those things happened to be me hurting my wrist the other day and I've been... hesitant to write until it stopped throbbing like the giant dick that it's being to me TT_TT. Good news? The hand's fine, Along with my recent update of Guardians wish I've been trying to get back into the swing of things after having been somewhat quiet for like three months, so yeah. There's that.**_

_**Ok now on to what we're really here for, the story!**_

_**Fic 'o the day:**_ To Shape and Change, by Blueowl_** For those of you who read my Guardians Wish story, you might be wondering why the hell I'm plugging the same fic twice, well I'm not. The other 'to shape and change' is a Naruto fic. This one happens to be a Harry Potter time travel fic. But not like you'd initially expect it to be. Snape is the one who's sent back in time, odd I know. Basically this is AU Post DH Snape. Basically Moldyshorts wins, in a last bid Super Harry bleeds himself dry of magical power and sends Snape back in time to turn his child self into a second Merlin or something close to it. This Snape is actually a nice guy in this story, which I fucking LOVE to death, I may be a man but I will snuggle the fuck out of good!Snape. ALL OF THE HOMO! This has nothing to do with me thinking that Potions would be OP as hell if people actually used them like they could be used in HP canon... no sir... *whistles nonchalantly***_

_**Oh who am I kidding, they make LIQUID LUCK for God's sake. You can bottle LUCK. If you can bottle something as abstract as luck and bend it to your will just imagine what else potions could do? Snape is basically potions JESUS if he actually used some of the abstract ideas I have floating around in my head.**_

_**Song/Vid of the day:**_Amv - Phuck Uew_** A very fun and upbeat AMV... using a song that's basically a lyrical middle finger to all haters and asshats everywhere.**_

_**Word/s of the day: **_Chubby chuckles. _**One of my friends said this, I lold more than I really should have.**_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own the Fate or Soul franchises, those belong to their respective owners. I do, however, possibly own your mom. She makes great sandwiches.**_

_**ooo-**_

"Talking"

_'Thinking'_

**"/Dark/evil creatures talking"**

_**"/Dark/evil creatures thinking"**_

_**-ooo-**_

_**Chapter 4: Preping for Conflict**_

"Ugh"Shirou's eye's opened blearily, taking in his surroundings with a sleepy, but perceptive eye. He was in a bed, that was for certain and it was a moderately comfortable bed too, so he wasn't in a prison or cheap hotel. Then the rest of his senses kicked in and he felt the skin contact, smelled the musky body odor of a woman and man after they had finished what nature entended and hadn't bothered to bathe, and finally he heard the rhythmic breathing of the two bodies beside him.

That had him wide awake as his frantic mind tried to put together exactly what happened. And then the memories of who was beside him, how it happened, and exactly _what_ had happened put a wolfish ear to ear grin on his face.

_'I wonder what Rin and Saber would say if they saw me right now?'_ He snorted under his breath so it wouldn't wake the two beside him.

Sunlight was just barely peeking over the lip of the horizon as Shirou used all his skills as a warrior and a magus to free himself from between his two ladies while still allowing them rest and start his morning routine. The man stood, slowly stretching, the satisfying crack of bone, running up his spine and limbs. Quietly making his way out of the room to keep from waking the two women he moved his early morning exercises outside, dressed only in a spare pair of tan breeches and a thin white tunic that had been suspiciously laid out for him outside the door. He also noted two other sets of women's clothing and could only assume that one of the inn maids or a servant of Hilde's had taken it upon themselves to leave something out so her majesty and 'guests' would be properly clothed after their night of 'entertainment.'

It was still in the midst of semi-twilight when Shirou walked out of the Inn. Imagine his surprise that there were several of Hilde's soldiers already milling about in the town square where the Queen's men had set camp. Most of them were preparing to move out by cleaning up the liter than some of the less dutiful soldiers had left lying about, while others were off to the side in a small area devoted to keeping their skills sharp. There were even portable wooden dummies set up so that they could practice with their swords.

Shirou, seeing that most of the soldiers cleaning up had things handled, chose to mingle with the latter group.

Setting up in a empty corner, the sword magus dropped down into a crouch and started going through several dozen sets of squats, after he was through with those he got down on his hands and started just as many pushups. After those were through he kicked his back legs up (and to the surprise of the few who were watching the strange man) started doing vertical pushups. Several eyebrows rose when he shifted from one hand to the other in single handed vertical pushups. This continued through at least a half a dozen other exercises that some of the soldiers couldn't even name and finally ended when Shirou stood, pulling off the sweat soaked tunic and tossing it to the side.

Several gasps were heard as Shirou's growing audience got a look at the sword Magus' body.

Scars. dozen's of them, hundreds even, running up and down his body like a roadmap of violence. Each one telling a story that even the healing magic of Avalon couldn't keep secret. The most vibrant and noticeable of these was the large, bright red scar on his chest directly over his heart. A scar which had a matching wound on the other side, which left many wondering how he had received such a life threatening wound and lived.

Ignoring the peanut gallery, Shirou moved on to weapons practice, which garnered the same reaction as his physical one. The poor wooden target that he had chosen as his unlucky sparing partner was the unfortunate recipient of over a dozen well placed daggers, all thrown by hand in a span of a few seconds. Then came a flying kick that cracked the dagger that had buried itself in the dummies chest, straight through the wood and out the other side. Shirou pushed off the dummy, flipping mid air while at the same time summoning his black bow, three arrows were already knocked and loosed by the time the toe of his boots had touched the ground.

Each arrow slammed into a vulnerable spot on the target: head, chest and to the wincing of many of the men watching, groin.

Satisfied with the results Shirou let the bow disintegrate into the air and traced a pair of Kanshou and Bakuya. Like a shot the sword user rushed the target, body almost parallel with the ground, many of the warriors around him blinked and missed the several slashes that he had already made, only the deep gashes in the wood displaying how dead someone would have already been had they reacted as quickly as they had. In the blink of another eye a half dozen more nicks had been gouged in the wood in a spiral like pattern after the Emiya had spun like a top with the blades set like the threads of a corkscrew along his arm, digging into the unfortunate wooden target.

This continued much like the physical exercise had until there was very, very little left of the dummy but splinters and the metal rod that had kept the thing in place.

Several claps arose from the audience which had grown to in excess of fifty of some of Hilde's best warriors. Shirou, for his part, remained neutral to the praise, to him this was simply practice, there was no one else but you when you trained, tune everything out and focus on the target, focus on the...

Just then, a large rotund man walked out of the Inn, along with several servants carrying large buckets of assorted meats, vegetables and breads to the center of the camp, where a large grill like device had been set up while Shirou had been training.

A happy little grin formed on the sword magus' face as he dispersed his weapons and approached the grill.

_**-ooo-**_

Bleary blue eyes cracked open, a rough hissing noise rising up when the bright glare of light invaded them. The head and body connected the these eye woke shortly after as Sophitia sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Stretching lightly a satisfying series of pops echoed in the room. The woman froze as another series of cracking noises filled her ears. Turning her head slightly, the Athenian came face to breast with a rather generous pair of mammary's. The woman turned an unhealthy shade of red as she fell back, catching a glimpse of the body that was attached to the love pillows that her head was unceremoniously enveloped in.

"Oh, you're awake." Hilde yawned, a sight which was a rather cute, given how mousy she appeared while doing so. It was only after Sophitia had looked down to see that the woman was sitting on her knees that she remember that the woman in front of her was several inches shorter than she was, so it was to be expected that she would be cute. Tiny things were cute, even ugly things tended to be cuter when smaller and seeing Hilde without all that armor on made her rather small compared to the Athenian.

"Y-yes." Sophitia nodded, blushing slightly as Hilde sat naked next to her, come to think of it, she was naked too. What exactly happened last night?

Oh.

The both of them and Shirou had...What had they done exactly?

The answer to that question came to the blonde quickly enough and brought a bright red blush to her face.

What hadn't they done?

Making no move to cover herself, Hilde walked over to the door to grab the clothing that had been set out for them by the maids of the Inn.

"Here, get dressed." She tossed a set to Sophitia and donned her own, which was a simple tunic and breeches, much like Shirou's though the tunic was a light green and the breeches had a more dusky brown coloring.

Moment's later Sophitia was also dressed in hers which was a more female oriented dress, though it was decidedly shorter than most full length dresses, canceling at the knees and having a rather immodest slit up the side to allow easier movements.

It also had a plunging neckline that would put most ladies of the evening to shame. Sophitia's lips puckered in annoyance. "What do they take me for? Some object? A mistress?"

"Truthfully speaking." Hilde interrupted, tossing a glance over her shoulder as she put on her boots. "Since I am royalty and Shirou by extension is nobility through our joining, you_ would _be considered a mistress."

The sour expression didn't leave Sophitia's face. "I'm not too fond of that ideology."

Hilde waved a hand in her direction, casually dismissing her concern. "Do not worry, even though I don't fully trust you, I do not see you as something so crude, especially after what happened last night." She pulled on her other boot and stood up, facing the blushing woman with a smirk and raised eyebrow. "Or did you not find that pleasurable?"

The Athenian would be an idiot to even think that, she said as much. "N-no, it was..." The woman swallowed as Hilde got in her personal space, pressing her breasts into the blonde's own. It didn't matter about the height difference, Hilde was far, far more aggressive than she would ever be and befuddling a man like Shirou was nothing compared to dealing with another woman who seemed to know all the tricks that she did to drive their partners wild.

Hilde grinned ferally. "I understand, you do not have to say a thing." She chuckled. "I swear, that Allure of Shirou's is magnificent." The queen ran a hand down her chest to her stomach sensually. "I haven't felt this good in years and I've never felt this... _satisfied_."

Sophitia only stared a the blatant display of sexuality for a moment before a grin of her own formed on her lips. "I know what you mean. I've been filled with energy lately (Among other things...) and I haven't had this much of a libido since..." The blonde trailed off as a small frown formed on her face, the memories of her dead husband drawing the muscles of her jaw into a tight grimace.

Picking up on the awkward silence Hilde laid a comforting hand on the woman's shoulder. "Let's go find where _our_ Shirou has gone to, shall we?" The friendly little smile she gave Sophitia seemed to help as the blonde's shoulders relaxed.

"Yes, let's see what our lover is up to." The two shared a small giggle and left the Inn, walking out into the center of town.

The two stopped almost immediately, seeing a rather large number of people crowding around what appeared to be a camp kitchen meant to cook food for the traveling company of soldiers.

Both girls attention however was drawn to a rather rotund man standing off to the side of the gathering, holding a chef hat in his hand and missing the customary smock most cooks wore to protect them from grease.

"What is going on here?" Hilde asked the man, her royal voice in place and tone brooking no argument.

"I-" The man began. "-Ah don know." He spoke with a deep accent, and seemed genuinely dumbfounded. "Ah was bout ta start cookin fer da men an sum guy wit white 'air comes up nex ta me an asks for mah smock."

An eyebrow rose on each girls face as they looked at each other curiously.

"Come on, there's plenty to go around!" Came a rather exuberant cry from the center of the conglomeration of people. The tide parted and allowed Shirou who was clothed in nothing but a pair of breeches, boots and the cooks missing smock and he seemed to be carrying a large cauldron of... something... and it smelled _amazing_!"

As Shirou set the pot down he finally noticed his two girls off to the side, staring at the rather large container of food that he had created, a little shocked that not only was Shirou a master fighter but apparently a master chef as well. In a flourish a pair of bowls were filled and ushered into the two girls hands, courtesy of the man himself. "Go ahead and eat, there's plenty." Shirou smiled warmly, basking in the kitchen-like atmosphere that surrounded him, even as more and more people crowded around the pot, waiting for Shirou to serve them another portion.

The two girls stared at their bowls, the thick beef stew smelling wonderful, while the meat and vegetables floating around seemed to bring a watering to their mouths. Taking the spoon they were given, the two took a bite.

Their eye's widened to the size of saucers, a small moan escaping from their closed mouths, coming out as a muffled groan of pleasure.

Then they took another bite... and another.

Before they realized, they had already finished and were staring wide eyed at each other.

"D-did you-" Sophitia whispered quietly.

"Yeah..." Hilde agreed, at the moment she was not a queen and neither was Sophitia a proud Athenian, they were simply two women, basking in the god-like chefmancery that their lover had bestowed upon them and the others.

"I am going to rock his world tonight." Sophitia groaned into her second bowl of food, which had somehow filled while she wasn't looking.

"I'm helping." Hilde agreed, likewise tearing into the food of the gods.

They later found out that Shirou made that meal with subpar ingredients and tools.

In the near future Shirou would find his own private kitchen built personally by Hilde and her men in Wolfkrone castle, which was filled to the brim with every ingredient, tool and medieval appliance imaginable.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

_** -Later that day-**_

"Ahem." Hilde cleared her throat, leaning over the table that had been hastily set up in one of the back rooms of the Inn, which itself doubled as a temporary war room for her and her field commanders. The queen glanced around the room, her advisors and strategists all staring down at a map that had been placed over the table, depicting late sixteenth century Europe. Sophitia was standing next to Shirou who himself was standing off to the side, giving the map a calculatory glance over, taking in all the names and places and comparing them to what he knew of his worlds history.

A hand tapped several points on the map, as one of Hilde's advisors marked them. "Since the last meeting, we've received reports from several townships and duchies that several of it's members have gone missing and their storehouses have been raided. They've each asked for our help since our army is one of the largest in the area and have chosen to defer to us, I've sent a few hundred men to bolster the guard around each city and sent patrols to guard the borders of several of the Duchies." Hilde sighed, idly scratching at the table with her gauntleted hand. "As of right now they've stopped several Lizardman raids and have sent the scaled bastards running back to Ostrheinsburg. Now-" Another hand tapped the map, and several points were highlighted as well. "I've been working with my spies across the empire and have found several induction grounds that the Sword has been using to build it's army; Here, here and here." The places were highlighted on the map. One was off the coast of current day Germany between Denmark and the Netherlands, Another was further Inland near modern day Hanover and the final mark was several dozen miles to the northwest along the border of what would by modern day Poland.

"This first town, here." She pointed to the city near Hanover. "Is a trade town, where many of the Empires major trade route's run through. My spies have told me that one of the Malfested have been poking around, looking for information on the Sword. I can only assume that they have some half fulfilled fantasy of obtaining the blade." Her hand clinched. "This I cannot allow. They also seem to have a rather large wallet as the Malfested bought a manor in the city and has been seen entering and exiting it on a regular basis. They cannot be allowed to make contact with the Sword, all the income for the swords forces must be cut before we can make our move."

Her hand moved to the coastal city. "Next, several reports over the past two weeks have pointed out a Malfested servant using this port to ferry slaves and mercenaries into the empire to be Malfested and turned into Lizardman troops, this needs to stop if we're going to launch an attack on Ostrheinsburg."

And finally." A fist slammed down on the border town. "A prison town, built around two hundred years ago to house the empire's worst criminal scum. It is a veritable fortress filled to capacity with over three hundred prisoners and over a hundred armed guards. My spies have told me that those housed here have been disappearing of late and they've agreed that it appears to be the work of a Malfested. Taking out the possible financial backer is important but we MUST destroy all possible recruiting from the coast and prison. Any questions?"

Shirou studied the map for a moment, mind whirring as he went over a possible approach for each target. "Do you have any soldiers stationed in or around this town?" He tapped a finger on a small village between Hanover and the coast.

"A few hundred or so, why?"

Shirou hummed to himself quietly, pulling several small markers from around the area to form a small half circle around the coastal target. "If you attempt to capture whoever is by the coast then it's possible that they could escape on the open seas, the best approach would be a silent one, a quick surgical strike to the heart of the slave trade in the area." He moved several pieces from the Hanover area across the map to patrol the roads leading to the prison. "Raise the local militia at the trade town and have them patrol in and around the area but move your more experienced troops to guard and patrol the roads leading from the Prison town to Ostrheinsburg. That way you're intercepting more of the prisoner recruits."

Hilde stared at the map for several moments, contemplating the idea, but then a small frown formed on her face. "That spreads my forces thin in several key area's."

Shirou nodded. "It will, but it only needs to hold for a few weeks, you can position troops from elsewhere to bolster the line's you're weakening, I'd suggest raising a town militia in each place you're guarding, they don't have to know how to fight, all they have to do is lay traps and defend their city." At the blank looks he was getting from the advisors and glance from Hilde urging him to continue, Shirou explained. "Certainly there are quite a few experienced huntsman in each of these villages. Ask them to help lay out traps that would normally capture bear or elk in the surrounding forests and plains, anything and everything to hobble any approaching army. Help them build a simple palisade, here he took a piece of charcoal and sketched out an extremely basic town defense and handed it to Hilde who looked it over." And finally have those huntsmen teach a few of the hardier men how to wield a bow and you'll have a decent enough support for your trained soldiers."

"It's a good plan and I agree with the traps and palisade." Hilde said at length. "but it takes years to shoot a bow with any measure of accuracy."

"And I don't expect them to be crack shots." Shirou agreed. "But they're only there to protect at a distance. An attacking force needs to be three to four times larger than a defending force if there is a wall between the two." The magus rolled his eyes. "A force that large you'd have to be blind to miss. Even at my worst I could still hit a charging formation of human sized targets, if not a kill then a wounding shot and every little bit helps after all."

Several of the advisors nodded slowly, imagining the forces they could work with in that short amount of time, it wasn't much, but it could easily hold the line for a few weeks.

"That doesn't solve our problems in the long run." Hilde, spoke up, idly tapping at the table in thought. " The Malfested would still be within the city and if worst comes to worst they could corrupt the slaves or prisoners while within the city and start a massacre."

"But that's where I come in." He interjected.

Hilde's posture stiffened, she leaned forward ever so slightly and rested her elbows on the table. "Explain."

"The first town on the list is the trade town, whoever the financial backer could be will most likely be there right now, unguarded but for what men they have purchased to watch the estate. I can walk into the town, neutralize the threat, then walk right out." He made a wishy washy motion to show how easy it would be. Hilde motioned for him to continue. "That particular one would be the easiest, the next would most likely be the port town. I have a fair bit of experience with infiltration and elimination, so that one shouldn't be hard, it might take a week at most to find and stop whoever is running the slave trade."

Several of the advisors had started whispering amongst themselves, several nods and a couple shakes of the head were visible but their intent couldn't be discerned.

Shirou tapped the point near the border, stopping the whispering short. "And the final point would be the prison, since it is the farthest from Ostrheinsburg it is also the most isolated when it comes to information. By the time the Malfested operating there has any idea of what has happened it will already be too late. Plus, on the upside, the prison is filled with soldiers so I wont have to worry about civilians getting in the way and if the Malfested does catch wind of what we're doing and decides to destroy things, all you have to worry about is a destroyed prison, not a destroyed port town."

This time the nods were a bit more energetic, and a couple mumbled agreements were made. Several of the advisors started working over the map to accommodate the plan and see if it was as viable as he had said.

"Will you be going alone then?" Hilde asked, a single brow raised and a curious tone to her voice.

"No, he won't" Sophitia spoke evenly, having remained quiet for most of the meeting. Shirou was about to say something when the Athenian gave him a glare that promised pain. "Oh no you don't, I'm coming with you, I can fight just as good as you can."

The short, patronizing snort from the man brought a deep red blush from the Athenian. "I can, you know I can..." An eyebrow rose, challenging that little line of speech, wordlessly bringing up the defeat she had suffered at his hands not several days before. "Ok." She huffed. "Maybe not _as good_ as you, but I can hold my own."

"Fair enough" Shirou rolled his eyes. "I know you won't take no for an answer, you're too stubborn for that."

Hilde's snickering broke into the conversation. "Hmhmhm, well things seem to be in order." She waved a hand over to one of her messengers who was standing off to the side, waiting for her command. After she had sent the man off to perform his duties she turned back to stare Shirou in the eyes. "Your plan is good, but it also hinges on you succeeding in your tasks, do not die out there my love." Her voice turned to a growl. "Because you were my first love, and by hook or by crook you shall be my last, I don't care if I have to follow you to hell. When I find you I _will _rip off what makes you a man and feed it to you if you fail to return to me." Her voice took on a slight quiver as she gave him her commands.

By the gods she was possessive... or maybe it was the link that was making her possessive? Shirou gulped slightly, having turned a shade paler from the threat. "Y-yes m-maam." She was as bad as Rin.

A warm smile replaced her threatening demeanor. "Good." She grabbed his cloak, pulling him in for a rough kiss which several of the advisors wisely turned away from lest they draw their queen's ire. "Now go my love, Go and destroy my enemies."

A stupid little grin was smeared on the Magus' face as he gave a small salute, that not so small part of him that wanted to be a knight in shining armor, that shining hero of Justice just couldn't help answering. "Yes, my queen." He spun on his heels, Sophitia not far behind him as he made his way out of the Inn.

_**-ooo-**_

They hadn't made it several steps out of the gate when Sophitia stopped, staring curiously at Shirou, who had placed his gear on the ground and had a look of extreme focus on his tanned face.

"What are you doing?" She asked curiously.

"Trying something." He answered her absently, still focusing prana through his circuits and projecting it out into his mystery. Slowly before Sophitia's eyes, a strange metallic... cart-like object formed in front of her, it was smooth in it's construction and was completely enclosed, the only way you could see inside was through the windows that seemed to encircle the sides of the strange device.

Shirou's smirk of triumph almost took up his entire face as a bright silver 1963 Aston Martin DB5 appeared on the road in front of them, scanning in like a digital model until it was a fully functional machine.

It really was quite funny honestly. Shirou's Element and Origin were both _Sword_ and when he traced swords they little to no effort on his part, even when it came to prana costs. But another fun fact was that he could trace any other kind of _weapon _as well, though things that lacked a blade like a club, hammer, whip or the like would cost quite a bit more prana-wise. What was funny however was what could be considered a _weapon_ in the eyes of his Bladeworks.

While the vehicle wasn't stored per se in his mental sword locker, it was memorized part for part down to it's last nut and bolt in Shirou's mind. It was something that Shirou had been tinkering with since he had discovered the flying ship Vimana Locked away in EMIYA's memories after he had somehow copied it in his own fight with Gilgamesh. Sadly Shirou didn't have near the output necessary to project the mythical flying device, but when it came to something mundane like this? It was a piece of cake.

The car itself was the labor of love of a certain... eccentric Magus who had come to love a particular 'British spy' film series and had endeavored to recreate the man's iconic vehicle of choice, including all the weapons. This small idea changed the contraptions concept of transportation to weapon fairly quickly. Q would have been rather proud of the attention to detail that the Magus had put into the vehicle with all the mundane weaponry being substituted with thaumaturgical means and it so happened that It was just magical enough to count as a mystic code and weapon, which allowed for a proper structural grasping and induction into his mindscape. His mechanical knowledge from all those years of fixing motorcycles for Taiga's family only compounded his ability to memorize the vehicle.

Now that the machine had been fully actualized into the world, Shirou fully felt the drain on his reserves, pulling nearly four-fifths of his magical potential, both from his natural reserves and his Magic Crest. His magic circuits were thrumming now, aching in only the way they could but it was a good ache, an ache that opened a new avenue of study that he could _finally _take now that he had the capacity to throw things like this around.

"What is this... thing?" Sophitia poked one of the rearview mirrors curiously.

"This is our transportation my dear." Shirou replied mockingly, oh he was going to enjoy the woman's reaction. He walked over to the passenger side and opened the door, holding it open like the gentleman he was. "After you" He waved a hand inside. Sophitia gave him a wary glance, that smirk didn't bode well for her, or anyone for that matter.

After Sophitia had sat down inside the car, Shirou had joined her on the drivers side, he showed her the means to buckle herself in and the two sat down in the surprisingly comfortable chairs. Then Shirou placed the key in the ignition and turned it over. A loud bang was heard as the car roared to life, followed by Shirou's uncontrollable laughter when he noticed Sophitia's fear filled face and the slight lump on her head where she had jumped in her seat and smacked her head on the low roof.

"It's not funny!" She punched him in the arm, only making the man laugh harder. "And what the hell is in the front of this thing? Did you tame a dragon and force it to power this machine?"

"Not at all, this is just a kind of transportation where I come from." A wicked smirk formed on the man's face as he shifted gears. "You might want to hang on to something." He howled, slamming his foot down on the gas and pealing off into the distance, leaving a cloud of dirt and a bunch of scared soldiers who had been guarding the walls. The girly shriek that trailed after the dust did little to relieve them of that fear.

_**-ooo-**_

_**Yes, Shirou can Trace James Bond's Astin Martin, big whoop wanna fight about it? It's under the Humor section for a reason, plus I can totally see EMIYA Shirou in a tuxedo holding a martini in one hand (Shaken, not stirred) and a Walther PPK in the other... Someone draw that please, for the love of God get on that.**_

_**Not much plot wise except some lulzy stuff in the beginning and showing off the plans for the future. Shirou's soon to be all sneaky super spy like and snoopin around different towns, namely a trade town, a coastal town and a prison. Each place will have it's own unique character interactions and I'm sort of basing this on the way the game itself plays in story mode, having like 6-7 different matches to complete a character's 'story.' I'll leave that up to yall's imagination until I get it all written out.**_

_**All in all a bit shorter than I wanted it, but I decided to stop there because it felt right.**_

_**Till next time.**_


End file.
